Plagg and the Butterfly Costume: Outtakes
by quicksilversquared
Summary: After Plagg gets spotted while wearing his butterfly costume, the effects just keep on growing. Plagg doesn't see everything that goes on, though. As it turns out, Plagg misses a lot. (Side Stories/alternate POVs of Plagg and the Butterfly Costume)
1. Gabriel Agreste&the Very Bad No Good Day

_Since PatBC is entirely from Plagg's POV and Plagg has the annoying tendency to entirely miss things that are going on, I decided to have side stories from other POVs to fill in parts of the story. Currently, there are nine side stories._

 _This particular chapter refers to events from PatBC chapters 1-3.  
_

* * *

 _ **Gabriel Agreste and the Very Bad, No Good, Terrible Day**_

Gabriel Agreste's day got off to an awful start when he accidentally scratched his eye while getting ready for the day. It hurt and hurt and didn't stop, so he had Nathalie set up an appointment with an eye doctor right away. He ordered Nooroo to stay put in the house before he left, and then left for the appointment, hoping for some fast relief.

He didn't get it. Instead, he got diagnosed with a scratched cornea that could take _weeks_ to heal and was told to avoid bright light.

It wasn't exactly what one would call a good start to the day, much less a good start to the _week_.

Once he got back to the mansion, he was even _less_ pleased to discover that Nooroo had wandered off. Evidently the kwami had decided to interpret the command to "stay here" to simply mean to stay in the house itself. The kwami's absence was made even more irritating by the fact that Gabriel couldn't design with one bad eye and his vision in the other eye blurry because he couldn't see well enough to get his contact in. Therefore, it would be the perfect time to go stand in his nice, dark lair and set an akuma on the city while he rested a bit.

He couldn't exactly do that if his kwami was AWOL.

Gabriel grumbled as he set off to try to find his wayward kwami. He stalked through the hallways, bad eye closed and the other eye squinted to try to make more sense of the blurry mess around him, peering around for flashes of purple. Thankfully Adrien didn't come out to ask what he was looking for, because Gabriel couldn't think of any excuses he might try to use.

Room after room turned up empty. Hallways were completely bare of magical gods. Gabriel's temper grew, as did the splitting headache growing behind his injured eye. He was starting to storm through the hallways, muttering under his breath the entire time.

Stupid kwami. Stupid eye. Stupid lost glasses that would make this entire search _eons_ easier.

And then he found Nooroo floating along in the dim hallway near the kitchen. He snatched his kwami out of the air, scolded him, and that was the end of it. Or so he thought.

It was when he tried to transform that everything went sideways.

Instead of spiraling into his brooch, the kwami in his hands made a dash towards the window as another purple shape appeared from the shadows in the lair, sucked towards his brooch. Gabriel blinked and froze, and then his gaze shot to the fleeing kwami as something clicked in his head.

That hadn't been his kwami. That meant that someone had set their kwami in _his_ house, dressed up as _his_ kwami, to spy on him. The only reason that someone would have done that was if they had suspected him. Someone hadn't fallen for his ruse when he akumatized himself, and they had sent in their kwami to investigate, and now that kwami knew that he was Hawkmoth.

Gabriel caught a flash of green before the purple-clad kwami phased out through the wall of the wall and escaped.

He spent the rest of the day in various stages of panic as he paced back and forth in his lair, sword out and at the ready in one hand and controls for the missiles clutched in the other hand. He couldn't let his guard down at all, not even for a minute.

Surely he would be attached any minute. Now that the superheroes knew who he was for certain, they were bound to come charging in like the impulsive, reckless superheroes they were. He just had to be ready to knock them back and take them out fast enough that neither could escape and go tell the world who Hawkmoth was. That would just lead to a whole lot of unnecessary fighting that he didn't really want to deal with as the whole world turned against him.

So why was it that they were delaying? Were they already out telling the world who he was? Were they hoping that if they waited long enough, he would let down his guard and be easy pickings?

It wasn't going to happen. He would _not_ let himself be taken down. Still, he couldn't stay transformed forever, especially not with a pounding headache that had just returned full force and was making it hard for him to think properly. Grumbling, he detransformed and headed back down to his office, ordering Nooroo to stay close by at all times so he could be ready to transform at a moment's notice. Even when he wasn't transformed, he was going to have to be on alert at all times.

"Nathalie, I'll need you to activate all security when you leave," Gabriel told his assistant as he downed the pills she passed him for his headache. She looked startled but nodded regardless.

"Of course, sir."

Once he was back in his room and had found his wayward glasses, Gabriel scanned every news site he could think of to see if there were any signs that Ladybug and Chat Noir had already gone to the press. The news stories were mercifully banal, and he slumped back onto his pillow in a combination of confusion and relief.

Relief because _thank goodness the police weren't on their way_ and confusion because it had been _hours,_ and surely the superheroes wouldn't delay. He had seen them in action up close several times, and he knew that they were hotheaded and impulsive. It wasn't like them to wait.

So why the delay? And on top of that, why had they suspected him enough to send in a kwami to spy on him?

"I don't understand," Gabriel told Nooroo as he settled into his bed for the evening. "I thought that akumatizing myself would throw them off for sure. They shouldn't have even suspected me in the first place, since that girl apparently had the book the entire time." He froze as a thought struck him. "Unless- maybe they hadn't suspected me- maybe it wasn't on purpose! I saw green on that kwami, green like Chat Noir's eyes and probably his kwami's eyes as well- perhaps I was right when I had suspected Adrien, and his kwami was just wandering around the place and I happened upon it when I was looking for _you!_ And _that_ means that it's _your_ fault that I'm in this predicament in the first place!" Gabriel practically snarled the last few words at his kwami. "If you hadn't wandered off-"

"I was in the lair the entire time!" Nooroo protested, dodging his grab. "I figured that would be a good place to stay!"

Gabriel scowled regardless, partly because he should have thought to check there and partly because he wasn't actually _thrilled_ with the idea of Adrien being Chat Noir. He had been hoping that he was wrong about his theory, that he was misremembering the degree of similarity between Chat Noir's ring and Adrien's, mostly because he didn't exactly like the idea that his own son would go against him and could easily slip away from his keepers just by transforming.

On the other hand, Adrien being Chat Noir could be quite convenient for Gabriel. All he would have to do to get the Cat Miraculous would be to send out as many tiring akumas as he could for Ladybug and Chat Noir to fight, with a break only for Adrien to tire himself out with basketball or fencing. Once Adrien was out cold, exhausted by the day, Gabriel could just stroll in and take the ring with no fuss. That would leave Ladybug alone to do the next fight, making it easier to defeat her.

And sure, maybe it would require betraying his son's trust just a bit, but that would hardly matter in the long run.

"It wouldn't make _sense_ for any kwami to be wandering around in an outfit made to look like me unless they suspected something," Nooroo pointed out, breaking Gabriel out of his plotting. "And the Turtle is green as well."

Gabriel frowned. Nooroo was right about the costume thing, as much as he hated to admit it. But that didn't immediately mean that Adrien could be ruled out. Maybe he got curious about the book and asked his kwami to investigate even though he had seen Gabriel akumatized. "What Turtle? There's no Turtle superhero right now. It would have to be the Cat or nothing."

Nooroo shook his head. "The Turtle tends to not be a front-line superhero. Besides, he's probably too old to fight. But he'd be the one who gave Ladybug and Chat Noir their Miraculous. The cat kwami is unlikely to go nosing around much; he's far too lazy. But if the Turtle happened to hear anything about the book or thought that there was something strange about your akumatization, then he would probably be curious enough to send in his kwami to poke around."

Gabriel frowned. It was strange that Nooroo was offering up information like that. He never did that anymore, not since he discovered that Gabriel intended to become a supervillain instead of a superhero. Of course he knew that there was a Turtle Miraculous- he had seen drawings in the Miraculous book- but since no further superheroes had shown up and actually stuck around, he had assumed that a lot were dormant or lost, or so far away that the news about the situation in Paris hadn't reached them, or, after the apparent Fox visitor came through, that perhaps any other superheroes out there had simply assumed that Ladybug and Chat Noir were doing well enough on their own. He had at one point suspected that there were more Miraculous and someone guarding them in Paris, but he had finally decided that he must have been jumping to conclusions after the Fox didn't show up again. After all, if there _were_ more Miraculous, then it wouldn't make sense to not use them.

The information was welcome, of course, and could probably be really useful in the future, but the sudden way it was offered made Gabriel suspicious. Nooroo just didn't _give out_ information anymore, not unless he had some ulterior motive.

(Not that he didn't file Nooroo's words away for future consideration, of course. Confirmation that there was someone with any number of inactive Miraculous, likely in Paris considering how fast Ladybug and Chat Noir had first shown up? He would have to try to investigate that. If he could somehow find this Turtle person and steal the Miraculous they had, he could have more power to work with. He could even transform using one of the other Miraculous and try to parade as a new superhero so he could catch Ladybug and Chat Noir off guard.)

"I didn't think that there was anything particularly suspicious about my akumatization," Gabriel dismissed with a wave of his hand. "I went out, I destroyed things, I came back and fought the superheroes. They unfortunately defeated me, though if I had had _one_ more second I could have cleared enough pages to capture them. I made an error in not clearing off the pages of useless items as I went. I could have gotten rid of the monuments as well once I had Ladybug and Chat Noir's attention."

Nooroo didn't say anything about that.

"Perhaps the girl lied about the book and how she found it," Gabriel mused. "Or maybe she had been reading it in a park or something and one of the superheroes or this _Guardian_ asked her who she had gotten it from and she told them. I suppose that could have aroused enough suspicion to justify sending a kwami in. But it's been well over a month since that book was missing. Why wait to send anyone in until now?"

"Maybe none of the superheroes saw the book at all, and the Guardian has just been sending Wayazz around to explore the city," Nooroo suggested. "There _have_ been a lot of akumatizations in this area, so maybe the Guardian knew that and was having Wayazz explore every house in the area."

"That _would_ explain why he didn't investigate a month ago," Gabriel said slowly. He felt some of his earlier excitement fade. Nooroo was (for once) right; it made _far_ more sense to think that this entire incident was entirely unrelated to his book's temporary unauthorized trip out of the house, which in turn meant that it _wasn't_ further evidence that Adrien might be Chat Noir. "Still, that doesn't mean I was incorrect about Adrien and his ring. I will investigate further in the morning."

And so he did, and his discovery was simultaneously the most frustrating thing ever and somehow also somewhat uplifting, because the ring Adrien was wearing was definitely not the cat Miraculous. That meant that Gabriel wasn't constantly putting his only son in danger (or at least in any more danger than any of the other students at his school), but it also meant that his dreams of an easy win over the superheroes via snatching the cat Miraculous in the middle of the night had gone up in smoke.

Seething, Hawkmoth sent out an akuma.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't make him feel any better.

* * *

 _I hope you enjoyed the story!_

 _As always, reviews make my day! :)_


	2. A Peculiar Request Pt 1

_Set during Chapter 6 (aka the visit to the classmate that wasn't Ladybug)_

 _(Please ignore any inaccurate techie talk. I tried to make things as accurate as possible based on what I could understand from research, but if there are any mistakes... just pretend that computers work differently in Miraculous-verse or something.)_

* * *

 _ **A Peculiar Request Pt. 1**_

To say that Max was surprised when Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up at his window was an understatement. Chat Noir was positive that he had never seen anyone so puzzled before.

"Is there an akuma?" Max inquired as soon as he opened his window to let them in. When they shook their heads, he frowned in confusion. "No? Then why...?"

"We need some tech help, and you were the first person that came to mind to ask," Ladybug told him. Max looked pleased, though clearly he was trying to hide it.

" _Really?_ Me?"

"You figured out how to build a robot with emotions," Chat Noir pointed out. "And we've heard that you developed software to counter a super-virus. You're good with this kind of stuff."

Max looked a little starstruck as he nodded. "I'll certainly help if I can," he promised. "What do you need?"

"We need to know how to put security camera feed on loop," Chat Noir told Max. He handed over the slip of paper with all of the information about that part of his father's security system that he and Plagg (and apparently Ladybug's kwami as well, though when she had been close enough for that he didn't know) had found. "That's the info about the system. Just let us know if it's missing any information you need and we'll try to find it for you."

"No problem," Max said immediately, adjusting his glasses as he scanned the sheet. "This looks like a fairly common system, actually. I'm ninety-eight percent positive that I'll be able to find the information you need for this without too much trouble."

"We also need a virus," Ladybug added, and if Chat Noir had thought Max looked startled before, he was wrong. Max looked as though he could be knocked over by a feather.

(An artificial feather, of course. Chat Noir had no desire to set off his allergies.)

"A- a _virus?_ "

"Yeah," Ladybug said. "Something that wipe all of the files from a certain user on a computer, preferably without affecting other users on that same computer."

Chat Noir nodded. That last requirement- well, request, really- was something Ladybug had suggested. He himself hadn't thought of it- in his opinion, his father would damn well deserve it if he lost all of his design files on his computer as well, but Ladybug had pointed out that it might not be a great idea to enrage Mr. Agreste _too_ much. If he thought that just the Miraculous filed were lost he would surely be annoyed but think that he could just scan everything in again, no real harm done. If everything on the computer was lost including his original designs, he would probably fly into a fury and might end up taking some of his mood out on Adrien.

Sure, it might make it easier for him to give up any remaining love for his father, but it didn't make sense for him to make his life harder.

"It'll be easy enough to limit it to one account as long as the user you want to affect doesn't have administrative privileges," Max said after a moment's pause, still looking positively baffled. "It'll be more difficult to limit it if it _does_ have those privileges."

Chat Noir blinked, lost, and glanced at Ladybug. She didn't look any less confused than he felt. Max looked at the both of them, sighed, and elaborated.

"The administrative _account_ is often the main one, for most home users," Max told them. "If it's a computer in a business then it probably isn't an administrative account, but it might have administrative privileges. You can check- hold on, let me write down some instructions for you." Max turned and pulled a blank sheet of paper out of the printer by his desk and started writing on it. "If it's a business account it probably won't have administrative privileges, but either way, it would be a good idea to check." Max finished writing and handed the paper over to Chat Noir before regarding them curiously. "If you don't mind me asking, what is this for?"

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a glance. They had decided easily enough that they weren't going to tell Max who Hawkmoth was or that they were targeting Gabriel Agreste, but they _had_ decided that they could trust Max with the fact that it was Hawkmoth that they would be targeting.

"We've discovered who Hawkmoth is," Ladybug started, and Max's eyes went huge behind his glasses. "And he has some information that we would rather that he not have. At the moment it's in code so it's not exactly something he could have memorized, but we don't want him to have it long enough to decipher it."

"We'll be switching out the physical copies he has for fakes," Chat Noir chimed in. "But he scanned things into his computer, so we want those destroyed. Or, rather, we're going to transfer his files to a _really_ big flash drive so we can see what he knows, and then we need the virus to make sure he can't, y'know, somehow recover stuff from backup or whatever or if we missed something, and to give us some cover."

"You want something that he won't realize that someone came in and took his files," Max filled in. "Okay. So you need a virus that makes itself known, not just one that works in the background. Something obnoxious. I can do obnoxious." He grinned.

Chat Noir was suddenly very, _very_ glad that Max was on their side. The look of glee on his face as he considered the virus he was going to design was rather eerie. Ladybug must have felt the same, since she spoke up again.

"We _just_ want one user affected," she reminded Max. "No matter how tempting it is to destroy all of his work. If we tick him off too much, he might take it out on the city by making even more akuma than usual...or he might take it out on his kid, who _definitely_ doesn't deserve any of this."

Much to Chat Noir's relief, Max's expression dialed _way_ back in intensity. "Oh, right. I didn't think about that. Okay, I'll limit the virus, but I _do_ have to know about the administrative access on the account."

"We'll try to find that out," Chat Noir promised. "And then we'll let you know as soon as possible. And thank you so much for your help. We _really_ appreciate it."

"I think that went well," Ladybug commented after they had said good-bye to Max and he had waved them out of his room, clearly eager to start work, though he had tried to hide it. "I'm glad I said something more about why we don't want everything on Hawkmoth's computer destroyed, though. I trust Max, but I think he might have been getting big ideas revenge for the attacks through the virus."

Chat Noir nodded. "Yeah. I think he'll be more careful now for sure." He pulled the paper that Max had given him out of his pocket and looked down at it. "Now I have to do is have my kwami try to follow this and figure out the administrative thing." He was willing to bet that his father's Miraculous account wouldn't be the administrative one, partly because the design account on the same computer had surely been there longer but mostly because Nathalie would know all about how viruses spread on the computers and would have taken steps to make sure that nothing would be able to bring the whole system down. In fact, he vaguely recalled Nathalie telling him something similar when she set up his computer account for him several years back. He had ended up with both an admin account and his own personal account that he actually used on his computer.

That was a good sign, at least.

"I could have my kwami do it, too," Ladybug said, looking surprised by his assumption that he would be the one to have his kwami look at Mr. Agreste's computer. "There's no reason why you should have to do all of the work, Chat Noir. Seriously."

"It's no problem at all," Chat Noir promised her, trying his best not to laugh. _No reason for him to do all of the work?_ Living in the same house as Hawkmoth was a pretty good reason for him- or rather Plagg- to take on the lion's share of the work. All he had to do personally was to sit in his room (like normal) and supply cheese (more than normal) while Plagg zipped around the house. If Ladybug investigated, she would have to try to lurk close to the mansion without getting spotted or questioned by Nathalie or the police. "Really, I, uh- I live close enough nearby that I don't even need to leave home for Plagg to be able to sneak over. That's how he found out about Hawkmoth in the first place, too. I wasn't having him search or investigate or anything."

"Okay," Ladybug finally agreed, though she sent him a funny look for some reason. "If you say so. But your kwami is doing so much already! Tikki said that he was disabling something in the lair and that it would take a lot of energy, especially since you're not in the same area."

"He can handle it," Chat Noir promised, patting Ladybug's arm. "Don't worry about it, 'bug. All I need to do is supply my kwami with extra cheese and he's fine with doing a little extra poking around." Maybe that wasn't _entirely_ true- Plagg's grumbles about being asked to investigate had been increasing as of late- but Ladybug didn't need to know how lazy Plagg was.

A yell attracted their attention then, and both superheroes glanced over to see an orange and purple-clad person zipping over the rooftops away from them. They sighed in unison.

"Well, duty calls," Chat Noir commented, tucking Max's paper back into his pocket. "Shall we?"

"That sounds like a plan."

* * *

 _A/N:I meant to post this yesterday/earlier today, but I had an interview for grad school today and focusing enough to get any work done was...not a thing that happened. Whoops.  
_

 _The next few chapters will alternate between the main story and the outtakes over here. I'm planning to at some point try to post a chart of which outtakes go with which chapters of the main story, but as there's only two outtakes thus far, hopefully it isn't too difficult to keep track of yet._

 _As always, reviews make my day! :)_


	3. The Discovery

Marinette hadn't been expecting much when she went to her weekly check-in with Master Fu. The translation of the photographed pages in the book was going slowly, and so he generally just told her what he remembered from his training when he was a young boy. It was interesting, and maybe some of the information could be useful for future akuma fights, but mostly it was a good chance to catch up and learn a bit about Miraculous history with someone who had spent essentially their entire life focused on all things Miraculous.

So she was a bit surprised when Fu handed her a cup of tea and then promptly announced, "Chat Noir and his kwami have discovered Hawkmoth's identity."

Marinette nearly dropped her cup. Tikki let out a small shriek. " _What?_ "

Fu nodded serenely, sipping at his own cup as though he hadn't just dropped the _biggest_ bomb in the history of bombs. "Yes, I was quite startled as well. It turned out that Plagg- that's Chat Noir's kwami, Ladybug- was roaming around in search of cheese, and, well, he happened upon Hawkmoth and saw him transform. And it appears that I was correct with my theory that Hawkmoth might be able to akumatize himself."

Marinette's brain stalled out, completely in shock. She remembered that conversation well- Master Fu hadn't been convinced that Mr. Agreste was in the clear even after he was akumatized, due to the fact that the Butterfly Miraculous and the Miraculous book would have (or at least _should_ have) been found in the same place. She had had to admit that it was a good point, but how could he akumatize _himself?_ Miraculous holders were supposed to be immune to the butterflies.

But apparently Master Fu was right, and Mr. Agreste was Hawkmoth.

Her first thought was _Well. That's good to know._

Marinette's second thought was _Oh. Oh,_ _ **no.**_ _Poor, poor Adrien._ He was going to be left without a father, and they had absolutely no clue what had happened to his mother. He was going to be absolutely _crushed_ when Mr. Agreste was arrested and exposed as a supervillain, and what would happen to him without his father there? Would Nathalie take care of him, or would he be forced to leave the city to live with other family members?

Did Adrien even _have_ any other family? He had never mentioned any grandparents or aunts or uncles or anything before.

"Chat Noir and Plagg investigated more last night, and found that Hawkmoth has not only the Butterfly Miraculous, but also the Peacock," Fu continued, and Marinette stiffened further. _Oh, that was_ _ **bad**_. "And scrolls similar to mine, but they will have different information on them, and of course the book. Mr. Agreste also has notes on the training temple. It's expected, perhaps, because he _did_ clearly find it in the first place, but I'll be interested in seeing those notes. They'll be doing some more investigating tonight, and then reporting back tomorrow. Will you be able to come around eight-ten tomorrow evening, so we can all meet together?"

Marinette's eyes flew wide. _All meet together?_ Had she misunderstood something? "Transformed?"

Fu shook his head. "No, because I want the kwamis to be able to chime in. I'll put up a screen between the two of you so your identities remain secret for now, and you'll have to talk through your kwamis. But it's more efficient this way, and it's a better way to brainstorm."

Marinette nodded. _That_ made sense.

"We're going to have to make a plan of attack, so that we can be as prepared as possible when you and Chat Noir face off with Hawkmoth," Fu continued. "We want to be able to take him off guard and keep him from being able to fight back. It could be difficult to fight him, especially if he can transform and get an akuma out so it's a two-on-two fight. Wayzz has told me that in the past, some Butterfly holders have had a butterfly pin-style weapon, or a thin sword. It would be better to catch him off guard and unarmed."

"Are we going to try to steal back the Peacock pin?" Marinette asked, shivering slightly at the idea of their arch-enemy with a _sword_. It wasn't a pretty thought. "And then what else is there to do?"

Fu nodded. "Yes, we want to recover the Peacock, so we can be sure that he doesn't have any backup that we don't know about. We also want to get some of the other artifacts recovered beforehand. If he's translated anything and has any access to any of the spells, that would be bad. He wouldn't have to be transformed to do a large amount of damage. If we have the book and scrolls, we can learn how to counter his spells if he knows any, and keep him from learning them if he hasn't managed to translate anything fully yet."

Marinette's head was spinning. _Spells?_ She had known that there were spells of sorts to use _with_ the Miraculous when they were transformed to access hidden powers- Fu and Wayzz had told her about them several visits ago, though she had yet to learn any of those spells- but it sounded like Master Fu was talking about _proper_ spells, like a wizard or something. Magic without needing the Miraculous, and that was a terrifying thought. It wasn't something that Master Fu had told her about before, so she had no clue what kind of spells Hawkmoth- _Mr. Agreste_ \- might have at his disposal, or what the limits to those kinds of spells might be.

This was just all too much information all at once.

"But that's all conjecture for now," Master Fu told her before she could get _too_ wound up. "There's no point in worrying about that right away. But right now- let's enjoy these treats you've brought me, and I'll fill you and Tikki in on _everything_ that Plagg and Chat Noir have told me."

* * *

Marinette's mind was still spinning when she left Master Fu's apartment. She couldn't _believe_ that Chat Noir and his kwami had somehow managed to stumble upon Hawkmoth's real identity. That was good news for her and for Chat Noir- once they got past the _incredibly_ difficult task of actually defeating Hawkmoth, there would be no more akumas to interrupt her day. Next school year, she would actually be able to attend class without ducking out. There would be no more write-ups for missed class when she was saving the city, no rushed homework because she had spent hours chasing after a supervillain, no ridiculously late nights because Hawkmoth was an ass with no regard for sleep schedules, no worrying about what having to take off whenever an akuma popped up would do to her career. It would also be good news for Paris, because tourism had dropped because of the ongoing akuma attacks and the local businesses were seeing a corresponding drop in revenue.

But it was truly terrible news at the same time. Marinette had hoped for Adrien's sake that Hawkmoth wasn't his father, back when she first took the book to Master Fu and found out that the book and the Butterfly Miraculous would have been found in the same place. Even though it had meant the loss of a lead, she had been relieved for him when the Collector attacked, even though she knew that Adrien must have felt horrible for upsetting his father enough for him to get akumatized. She had thought that at least it meant that while Mr. Agreste was an awful father (really, _really_ awful, and so cold and uncaring), he wasn't _evil_.

But now? Mr. Agreste was _both_ an awful father _and_ obviously evil. He had sent akumas after Adrien before, and several could have _seriously_ injured him if she and Chat Noir hadn't been there to stop the akumas. Clearly he wanted to use the Miraculous to recover his wife- or, well, that was what she was _guessing_ , at least- but that didn't excuse him for endangering his own son in order to try to achieve that goal.

"Do you think Mom and Dad would be willing to take Adrien in?" Marinette asked Tikki that evening. "I know they like him, and he could use the love. And I think he likes being over here, too."

Tikki giggled. "And because you could see him all the time?"

Marinette shoot her head, even as a slight flush lit up her cheeks. "I don't care about that, not really. Adrien need a friend right now, and he needs a family. That comes first." She wasn't lying- even though she definitely was still very much interested in Adrien, the whole situation had made her take a _giant_ step back to look at the big picture. Once Mr. Agreste was arrested, Adrien would no doubt be suffering from the double blow of losing his one remaining parent and the attention of stupid reporters who just wanted to get a scoop. He didn't need one of his friends to still be stuttering over her words around him like an idiot. She wanted him to be able to consider her home a safe place, one where he wouldn't feel uncomfortable.

As Marinette turned back to the homework in front of her- how she was going to focus enough on it with her thoughts racing like they were to actually do a good job, she _really_ didn't know- she didn't see Tikki's proud smile.

* * *

The next day, Marinette threw herself into her new resolution to be Adrien's friend first and foremost with earnest. No more trying to ask Adrien out or make romantic moves on him; right now, she was going to make sure that she didn't do or say anything that might make Adrien uncomfortable. Instead, she would be the absolute best friend to him that she could be, starting with bringing Adrien (and Nino and Alya) croissants to eat before class as a treat.

Seeing Adrien light up and grin at her as he reached for a croissant made Marinette smile, and she only had to fight a little bit to keep back the blush. Alya had elbowed her with a sly grin, but Marinette ignored the wriggling eyebrows and focused on Adrien, though now she was focusing more on _him_ as a person and less on the way the sun glinted off of his hair and made his green eyes sparkle.

Adrien seemed a little more downcast than normal, just a bit quieter and more muted as they talked together before class started. Marinette had to wonder what was going on with him- did he suspect something was going on with his father? Had he had a long photo shoot or another argument with his father or Nathalie? Maybe he was just tired. It was impossible to tell, and Marinette didn't feel like she was close enough to Adrien to just come out and ask.

Besides, she was sure that if he _did_ suspect anything amiss with his father, he wasn't going to tell them about it. Not unless he was 100% certain, and even then, he would probably go to Ladybug and Chat Noir first, not knowing that they already knew about Mr. Agreste being Hawkmoth.

As the day continued, Marinette made sure to actually join in with their conversations instead of hanging back and just staring at Adrien as he talked and brushed his hair back out of his eyes while he talked. Adrien looked happy with the change, and soon the two of them were deep in a discussion about Mega Strike 3 while Alya and Nino looked on.

"You and Adrien are chatty today," Alya commented after class as the boys headed up the hallway ahead of them. She grinned and wriggled her eyebrows at Marinette suggestively. "Anything you want to share?"

Marinette shrugged, doing her best not to blush and encourage Alya's prying further. "I figured that it would be better to focus on being friends first. And I like this more, honestly- Adrien is fun to talk to, and I'm not freezing up and saying stupid stuff."

Alya looked positively baffled by the sudden about-face in Marinette's attitude. To be fair, Marinette really couldn't blame her. Up until the previous day, getting a date with Adrien had kind of been all she had been focused on... which, in retrospect, was pretty dumb of her. "B-but you can do both!"

"No, I can't. I try, and then I end up a stuttering idiot. I'm going to focus on being his friend first." _Friends are what he needs right now, not a girlfriend_ , Marinette added mentally, but there would be no way to explain that to Alya without sounding like some sort of complete raving weirdo. As far as her friends knew, nothing had changed between the previous day and now, even though so much _had_. "And when I'm not trying to ask him out, then I can actually talk like a normal person and I don't have to _cringe_ when I think back to when I talked to him."

Alya just threw her hands up in exasperation. "Okay, fine! But at least _think_ about trying to make steps in that direction. Like, you could ask him to the movies as friends, maybe."

Marinette tried not to snort, she really did. She failed. "Right, and somehow his father would just suddenly up and decide that it's okay for Adrien to go out to the movies after all? That didn't exactly go over well _any_ of the other times the four of us tried to do that. Maybe we could study together or something instead." _That_ would be both friendly and productive and also a Mr. Agreste-approved activity, and maybe if they were studying together then she could distract Adrien from whatever it was that was bringing him down.

Marinette frowned as something suddenly occurred to her. On the other hand, maybe she shouldn't commit to _too_ many get-togethers with her friends right now. Since Chat Noir (or rather, his kwami- and didn't that just raise all sorts of questions that couldn't be answered?) had discovered Hawkmoth's identity, they would probably be having more frequent meetings with Master Fu as they tried to put together a proper plan of attack and talked about Hawkmoth's weaknesses. It would be frustrating to have to fill up her already busy schedule even more, since Alya was _already_ complaining about how hard it could be to find time to hang out with her, but that would all be fixed after Hawkmoth was properly defeated.

Marinette would have _spades_ of time to spend to her friends once the akumas were gone for good. She could only hope that Adrien would still be around to hang out with them then.

* * *

Going over to Adrien's house had always been intimidating. Part of it was the sheer _size_ of the mansion, part of it was her nerves about being around Adrien, and a _very_ large portion of it was completely due to Adrien's father's presence. Even when she _wasn't_ returning something that she (well, _technically_ Lila) had taken from Adrien (and that Adrien had taken from his father), it wasn't exactly something she had ever looked forward to.

Now, with the knowledge that Mr. Agreste was Hawkmoth- and that he had seen her with the Miraculous book, and he knew that _she_ knew that he had it- Marinette was outright dreading going over to Adrien's house to work on a group project. She would much rather work literally _anywhere_ else.

"At least he probably won't send out an akuma if the four of you are in the house," Tikki pointed out as Marinette packed her bag with the papers and books they would need for their project. "And you won't have to make some excuse to leave if there isn't an akuma. Besides, I can fly around and investigate, too, to make sure Plagg hasn't missed anything!"

"I suppose that _is_ convenient," Marinette admitted. "And I know there are upsides to going over there, but it just makes me nervous. What if he _does_ make an akuma and I have to sneak away and Nathalie or Adrien just happens to mention it to him later? That would be _awful_."

Tikki sighed. "Except you know that Alya would dash off first, and Nino would follow her, so then there wouldn't really be a point in staying and working on a _group_ project with only the two of you there. I think you'll be fine."

Marinette just nodded, finished stuffing the last notebook in her bag, and headed down the stairs.

Alya met her in the bakery with a wide grin that spelled trouble. Marinette paused, suddenly nervous for a whole different reason. "Uh, what's that look for?"

"Oh, nothing," Alya trilled as she herded Marinette out the door. As soon as the door was shut and they were headed down the sidewalk, Alya flashed another wide grin. "I'm just excited to get to work on our project, that's all. And don't worry, Nino and I will be sure to make sure that you and Adrien get some alone time while we're there, too."

Marinette let out a long, exasperated groan. She had been trying to tell Alya that she wasn't going to be making moves on Adrien any more, but Alya had seen how Marinette and Adrien were interacting now and _pounced_ on it, trying to manipulate things so that the two of them would be pushed together. " _Seriously?_ Alya! I _told_ you that I'm just trying to be friends with Adrien right now, nothing more. Besides, it's hardly the place to be screwing around," she added when Alya looked unconvinced. "You _know_ that Nathalie will be checking in on us and that Adrien is going to get in trouble if we're messing around at all, even if it's not his fault."

"Oh, that's true." Alya's face had fallen at the reminder. "That's no fun! _Fine_ , we won't try to get the two of you alone, then. But you can't talk me out of sticking you two together to work on a certain part of the project while Nino and I work on a different part."

"Just don't force it if the work doesn't divide like that," Marinette told Alya, figuring that that was as good as she was going to get out of her stubborn friend. "If it would work better for us to each be doing our own thing for a bit, then it wouldn't make sense to slow ourselves down by working as pairs."

"But what's the point of a group project if we don't work together?" Alya complained. They rounded the corner and headed up the block. Up ahead, Marinette could see Nino waiting for them. "Who cares if it takes a little longer?"

"Adrien, probably," Marinette suggested, feeling a bit bad for throwing Adrien under the bus when she also cared very much about how long the group project took. "He's got such a busy schedule that it could be hard to work around that if we drag out our meetings, and his father might start objecting to him coming out and joining us if we aren't getting our work done."

Alya just made a face.

"Ready to face the beast?" Nino called as the two girls drew closer. He was clutching his book bag, and the headphones had apparently been left at home, along with his baseball cap. "Maybe Mr. Agreste will be busy. Or out."

"I don't know if he ever actually leaves the house," Alya commented. "Have you ever heard Adrien say anything about that before? The only times I've ever heard of Mr. Agreste being outside is when he was dragged there by an akuma."

Marinette tried not to laugh at the reminder of the akumas that had gone after Mr. Agreste. She knew that she shouldn't find it so funny, but with the knowledge that Mr. Agreste was Hawkmoth and had therefore set akumas on _himself_ and somehow thought that that would be a good idea...

Well, clearly Mr. Agreste didn't exactly have the greatest reasoning skills in the world. It seemed that putting _himself_ in danger and relying on the superheroes to save him wasn't exactly the best plan in the world.

Much to everyone's relief, Nathalie was the one to let them in, and Adrien was the one to meet them in the atrium. They headed up to his room, Adrien leading the way and Marinette bringing up the rear so that Tikki could dart out of her bag unnoticed to go explore the house and spy on Mr. Agreste.

"I had the chef bring up snacks to eat while we work," Adrien told them, grinning when Nino let out a quiet whoop. "But we have to stay on track with our work. Nathalie is going to be checking in on us regularly, and she'll expect to see progress."

Nino groaned, but Marinette couldn't help but be thankful. Now he and Alya would _definitely_ have to behave instead of spending all of their time trying to set her up with Adrien. That meant that they _should_ be getting a good chunk of work on their project done now, which was good because it was a _big_ project and the sooner they got it done, the better.

After a few more minutes, they were all settled in at Adrien's desk and starting their work. Marinette wasn't surprised that she had been pushed into the seat next to Adrien, but she wasn't upset about it either. Adrien was a hard worker and _super_ smart, and now that she was focusing on just being his friend Marinette could really enjoy his company.

And they worked well together. Like, really well together. _Strangely_ well together, considering that they hadn't really talked _that_ much together before, since... well, since Marinette had been being a bit of a spaz whenever it came to Adrien and actually interacting with him like a normal human being. Thankfully Adrien didn't seem to be holding it against her at all.

Now if only Marinette could get Nino and Alya to _properly_ drop the matchmaking attempts before Adrien noticed their less-than-subtle hints and hand gestures, then she'd be set.

* * *

There were times when Marinette wondered if maybe, _just maybe_ , she had been right with her guess that Adrien suspected that something was up with his father. He looked miserable whenever an akuma attack affected someone they knew, and he had started to look upset whenever his father was brought up. He was _definitely_ down in the dumps about something during their last get-together to finish up their group project before it was due, so much so that Marinette couldn't resist giving him a hug and a bag of cookies in hopes that it might help cheer him up, even just a little bit.

Adrien had always been such a positive, sunny person that it actually _hurt_ to see him sad.

And Adrien wasn't the only one not to be his usual bubbly self recently. Chat Noir seemed tenser than usual during akuma fights, and the number of puns had dropped sharply ever since he and his kwami had discovered Hawkmoth's identity. Marinette suspected that it was because the final fight was a concrete idea now, something real and coming up soon instead of simply a vague idea of something that might happen in the distant future. Their nemesis had a name and an address and a face, and was clearly ruthless and driven enough to akumatize people who would have his son as a target. That knowledge was intimidating.

Marinette tried to help, she really did. But without knowing for _sure_ what was causing Chat Noir's downcast mood, there wasn't much she could do to cheer him up besides praising him for his ideas and his fighting during akuma attacks and hugging him in place of their normal fist bump after the akuma was cleansed and the city restored. She hoped that Master Fu and the kwamis would agree to let them share their identities soon.

 _Surely_ it would be safe for them to know about each other for a few days prior to their final battle with Hawkmoth, right? They would want to be able to coordinate and prepare together, and it would be good to know who the other person was and who their family was, in case anything happened during the final battle.

(Not that anything bad _should_ happen, considering all of the preparation they were doing. They were hoping to go for more of a final _confrontation_ rather than a final _battle_ , after all. Boring was better when it came to supervillain encounters.)

"You can always ask Master Fu when you'll be able to do the reveal," Tikki suggested after Marinette mentioned it for the fifth or sixth time. "I think that you're right about having to wait until you have a date set to go after Hawkmoth, but it wouldn't hurt to ask."

Marinette nodded, then glanced at her phone and yelped. "Oh, it's nearly time for our meeting today! I'm going to be late! Tikki, are you ready to go?"

Tikki zipped into Marinette's bag. "Ready! Are you going to ask Master Fu today?"

Marinette thought about it for a moment as she raced down the stairs, then shook her head. "I don't think so. If you think that we need to have a date set first, then I'll wait until closer to then. I don't want to get Chat Noir's hopes up and then have Master Fu tell us that we have to wait for another couple weeks or something, not with how down he's been recently." Her partner would probably feel the letdown even more keenly than she would, so she would either wait until they knew when they were going after Hawkmoth or wait until she could catch Master Fu alone. Considering that Chat Noir tended to linger after their meetings to chat with the old Guardian (presumably to make sure that he understood what Plagg had to investigate next; Marinette _really_ didn't understand why her partner was so insistent that his kwami do all of the work when Marinette was perfectly willing to go hang out by Adrien's house so Tikki could do some digging, too) and Marinette _really_ didn't have enough free time to keep heading over to Master Fu's place when they didn't have a meeting scheduled in hopes of catching him alone during the day, she would probably have to wait to ask.

 _Boo_.

Marinette snagged the bag of pastries she had packed earlier in the day from the kitchen counter, then headed out the door. She speedwalked as she headed to Master Fu's, knowing how important it was for her to arrive right at the time the old master had specified. She and Chat Noir were given slightly different arrival times, and arriving early or late could result in an accidental early reveal.

Marinette arrived only a minute late, and found her partner already there, his voice ridiculously altered as always by the Darth Vader mask as he talked with Wayzz and Master Fu. Marinette waved to the old Guardian and took a seat on her cushion on the floor, pulling on her own voice-altering mask on as she did.

"Good to see you, Ladybug," Master Fu greeted her, taking the bag she handed him. He opened it and there was a squeal as Chat Noir's kwami dove in to claim a cheese bun. "Now that we're all here, let's start the meeting."

It didn't take long for Marinette to momentarily check out of the conversation, instead frowning slightly at the screen towards where her partner was sitting on the other side. She could tell that something was up with Chat Noir, even without seeing his face. His voice wasn't even close to being as energetic as usual- and no, it wasn't just the mask making it sound that way. Besides, she had noticed that he had been unusually serious and stone-faced during their akuma fight the night before.

Together, that was enough to spur Marinette to scoot forward and carefully reach her hand around the screen so Chat Noir could twine his fingers with hers if he wanted to. There was barely a pause before she felt his fingers slide past hers as he laced their hands together.

There were no flirty comments. That was when Marinette knew that there was something _seriously_ wrong with her partner. When he leaned into the screen that separated them, Marinette didn't hesitate before returning the gentle pressure and tightening her hold on Chat Noir's hand.

No matter what was getting her partner down, they would get through it together.

Just like they always did.

* * *

 _A/N: So I had planned to update yesterday because I'm, like, a whole chapter behind schedule, but instead I did taxes because I'm a responsible adult who doesn't put important things off.  
_

 _...who am I kidding, I was planning on doing my taxes for three whole weeks before I actually got around to it, and that was only because the deadline is coming up._

 _Next up is going to be another chapter in the main story, followed by THREE side story chapters (I got a little carried away, oops)! I kind of clumped a lot of side stories near the end since there was a lot going on (and Plagg doesn't always pay the best attention)._

 _As always, reviews always make my day! :)_


	4. Of Voice Changers and Useful Helmets

_A/N: So, I lied... instead of the main PatBC story being updated, I'm doing a just-written outtake of the outtakes ft. the Darth Vader helmets, followed by another outtake that is TECHNICALLY set during the next main chapter (but doesn't spoil much anything), so that the next outtake and next chapter can be posted at the same time for reasons._

 _But because of all that, my schedule is getting a little more crunched than normal so that I can get more posted before I go up to Canada (since I will only have very sporadic internet access then), so there should be more frequent updates for a bit :)_

* * *

"Well, that was interesting," Marinette told Tikki as they headed away from Master Fu's place Friday evening. " _Plagg_ is interesting. Is he always like that?"

Tikki sighed. "A bit, yeah," she admitted. "Obsessed with cheese, a bit of a loudmouth, and _very_ stubborn. I'm surprised that wanted to be in charge of planning at all, but that's probably just the stubborn coming into play. He can be _very_ competitive when he wants to be." A pause. "Which isn't very often at all."

Marinette giggled.

"I feel like it's going to get frustrating to have to talk through you and Plagg all the time," Marinette commented a few minutes later. "I understand _why_ , of course, but there were times today when I just wanted to blurt something out, but I had to wait to whisper it to you instead." She frowned. "I feel like one of us is going to end up blurting things out eventually. I'm used to saying what I'm thinking, and Chat Noir tends to blurt stuff out, too."

"Well, you can't transform," Tikki reminded her. "Plagg and I need to listen, too, and he _is_ the one doing all of the exploring. If you could figure out how to change your voice to talk all the time then it would be okay to talk, but you would have to remember to talk that way _all_ the time when you're at Master Fu's place."

Marinette frowned in thought as she continued down the road. She could maybe _try_ to change her voice- maybe she could pitch it higher or lower than usual, or maybe look up a tutorial to see how voice actors changed their voices to voice characters- but it would be super-hard to remember to do that consistently.

Was it really _necessary_ to change their voices? What were the chances that she and Chat Noir would know each other outside the mask?

"Remember that Chat Noir just _happens_ to be close enough to Mr. Agreste's house for his kwami to go over and explore on a regular basis," Tikki reminded her. "And you've said before that Chat Noir is probably your age."

"So he probably goes to the same school I do," Marinette filled in. "Unless he goes to some private school or something. Except he always shows up pretty fast at school whenever there's an akuma there, so he probably _does_ go there, just in another class or something." She frowned. "I don't think I would recognize anyone from any of the other classes by their voice, though. We don't get together with the other classes enough for that."

"Well, you might grow to learn how to identify Chat Noir's civilian voice and then happen to overhear him talking in the hallways at school," Tikki pointed out entirely reasonably. "Or he might happen to overhear you. _That's_ why you have to be careful about your voices whenever you're out of costume."

Marinette sighed. So much for that.

She puzzled about the problem on and off for the next couple days, trying to think of what they could do instead of talking through the kwamis. So far her best idea was to try to talk with an altered voice, just far enough off that Chat Noir wouldn't hear her at school and immediately go _hey, that's Ladybug_ , but it wasn't _that_ great of an idea. There was too big of a chance that she would mess up and talk like normal when they got really into talking strategy or when Plagg and Chat Noir dropped a bombshell of information on them.

Besides, both she and Chat Noir already had enough to do without learning how to talk with an altered voice on top of that, and Marinette _really_ didn't want to risk overhearing Chat Noir practicing his changed voice at school with his friends. That would completely defeat the point of the altered voices.

Marinette was about to give up on the whole idea of trying to get around the whole identifying voice thing when her mother had her run to the store for a few things. On her way to the check-out counter, Marinette stopped by the clearance shelf to see if there were any art supplies there. There weren't, but there _were_ several Darth Vader masks sitting on the shelf among the dented cans and partially crushed cereal and cracker boxes. On each box, it read _Voice-chan_ g _ing helmet!_

"Oh, _perfect!_ " Marinette exclaimed, picking one of the boxes up to inspect it. The helmet inside was in such bad condition that Marinette was surprised that it was out at all. The paint itself was a bit mottled in places to start with, and then there were some scratches as well. The boxes were a little crushed, but it looked like the _important_ part- the voice-altering mouthpiece- was intact.

"Can I check to make sure they work?" Marinette asked a passing worker. She pointed at the helmets. "Or is that not allowed?"

The worker gave her a slightly puzzled look, but shrugged. "Sure, go ahead."

Marinette pulled the box open, checking the clearance sticker as she did. The price had been slashed heavily, meaning that Marinette would be able to buy two easily, without having to dig _too_ deeply into her monthly allowance. She pulled the mask out- and yikes, there was a crack in the plastic in the back of the mask, but that wasn't _that_ big of a deal, she could just tape it up- and pulled it on. "Hello?"

Tikki's eyes blew wide open when she heard Marinette's altered voice. "Oh, that's crazy! It doesn't sound like you at all!"

Pulling the helmet back off, Marinette put it back in the box and then in her basket, grinning the whole time. "Yeah, it's perfect! And there's a bunch of them on here, so there's _bound_ to be another one that works." She grabbed another box, making sure to check that clearance sticker, too. She had learned from experience that even if there were two of the same product on the clearance shelf, they weren't necessarily priced the same. This time, the voice changer didn't work.

"I think they need to mark this one even _further_ down," Marinette said as she put the mask and the box back. "That voice-changer is the whole point of the mask."

She sifted through the other three boxes, grabbing the cheapest of the ones left to try. There were more scratches and once again, the back was a little cracked, but the voice-changer worked.

"Hopefully Chat Noir can get this on," Marinette said with a giggle as she rearranged the clearance shelf so she didn't leave it super-messy. "He has so much hair, and it'll get all squished down!"

Tikki giggled as well, covering her mouth with her little paws.

Marinette checked out, having the masks rung up separately from her mom's things, and then headed home. She gave her mom her purchases, then trotted upstairs with her masks to get a better look at them.

"I want to fix these up a _little_ bit," Marinette told Tikki as she set the masks on her desk. "I want to tape over the cracks in the back so they don't catch on our hair. They both pulled a few hairs out before. Or maybe I can use some glue," she added. Marinette dove into her basket of assorted art supplies and came up with a specific glue. The tube was half empty, but fixing the helmets wouldn't take _that_ much. "I apply it and stick things together, then wipe off the extra so it dries all smooth." She grabbed a few more things from the box, then gathered up the masks and headed up to the balcony. "And I'm going to work outside, because this stuff smells."

It didn't take long to fix the cracks on the first helmet. Marinette worked carefully, applying the glue and then sliding the pieces back into place. Tikki watched, flitting around to see what Marinette was doing.

"What are the markers for?"

Marinette glanced over at the pile of markers Tikki was pointing to. "Oh! Those are paint markers. I wanted to fix the paint job on these just a little bit, so they don't look so awful."

"Why fix them if you don't actually care what they look like? I thought you just cared about the voice change thing.""

"It's a pride thing," Marinette admitted, setting the second helmet aside with one last swipe to get rid of the extra glue. "I don't want to go in to Master Fu's with something that looks like it belongs in the dump when I _know_ I can make it look better. It's not that much work, really. And I already have all of the supplies I need. See? I have _loads_ of black paint pens. I have a few gold ones, too, but I used most of those up." She picked up one of the pens and the first helmet and started covering up one of the scratches, careful to hold the helmet in a way that wouldn't jostle the still-drying glue.

Tikki frowned as she watched Marinette work. "Why do you have paint pens?"

Marinette grinned as she covered up a second deep scratch. She couldn't do anything to fix the texture of the helmet, but at least the damage was less noticeable when it was painted over. The smell was _awful,_ but the wind blowing across her balcony blew it all away. "I got a whole bunch when we updated the bakery logo! We wanted to put the logo on our delivery van, so I got a _ton_ of these markers so I could do the painting. They're meant to be used to cover up scratches in car paint, but they work like this, too." Another little scribble, and Marinette adjusted her hold to keep working. "And I _could_ use regular paint, but I think this matches the shine of the helmet a little better. Besides, it's convenient."

It didn't take long for Marinette to paint over both the scratches and the mottled paint job on both helmets. With one last check to make sure that the glued parts were still lined up properly, Marinette set them up to dry on her balcony (just out of sight, of course- she and Chat Noir had landed on her balcony before during akuma fights, and she was _not_ going to get herself revealed through some Darth Vader helmets) and then headed downstairs to work on her homework.

After all, even being a superhero in the middle of planning to go after one's arch-enemy was no excuse for slacking off in school.

* * *

Master Fu had not looked entirely convinced when Marinette showed up on his doorstep with a bag of treats from the bakery and two Darth Vader helmets. He only agreed to let them try the helmets when Tikki assured him that there was absolutely no way that the two superheroes would be able to recognize each other's voices with the voice-altering mechanism in the mask. Marinette had tested the masks out once more before leaving home to make sure that the batteries were still working, even, just to make sure that things wouldn't get screwed up on the very first day.

"I tried using it too, and it made my voice sound _really_ weird!" Tikki told Master Fu as they got set up. Marinette set one mask on Chat Noir's side of the screen and then set her own mask down on the opposite side before fetching the tea tray for the old Guardian. "All deep and distorted and weird!"

Marinette tried not to laugh at the memory. The mask had also had the somewhat odd side effect of making Tikki a bit louder, enough that her father had stuck his head up into Marinette's room to see what was going on. She had had to claim that she was repairing some old cosplay pieces for some of her classmates and that was why she had two Darth Vader masks in her room despite never having watched any of the Star Wars movies, and thankfully that was explanation enough.

"Look, I'll show you!" Tikki said, zipping into the mask. "Hi! I am the God of Creation, hear me ro- Marinette, this isn't working anymore!"

"You have to turn it on first," Marinette explained with a giggle. She reached over to flip the tiny switch. "That way, the battery doesn't run out so fast."

"Oh!" Tikki exclaimed, though her voice came out low and distorted. Fu and Wayzz both jumped, and Marinette had to leap up to catch Fu and keep him from falling. "Oh, it's working now! Isn't it fun?"

"That is... _something_ , all right," Master Fu managed, one hand over his heart. "And it certainly changes the voice enough that no one would recognize it. Very good, Ladybug." He paused and turned to look at the clock on the wall. "Now, Chat Noir should be arriving soon. Why don't you set up his mask on the other side and make sure that it's on and working?"

"Okay!" Marinette said cheerfully. She snagged the other helmet and got it set up for her partner, trying not to giggle when she heard Wayzz trying out the mask for himself. The kwamis seemed quite amused by it, testing how talking in different voices would affect what would come out. They stopped as soon as they heard Chat Noir's footsteps approaching the door, zipping into place and allowing Marinette to pull her helmet on.

It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, nor the most fashionable, but it was functional, and hopefully it would provide a bit of a lighthearted moment during what was sure to be a fairly serious meeting.


	5. A Peculiar Request Pt 2

**A Peculiar Request Pt. 2**

Somehow, going over to Max's apartment a second time was more nerve-wracking than it had been the first time. Maybe it was because they didn't know for _certain_ yet if he had been successful with the virus or not. Maybe because Ladybug and Chat Noir had to hide three kwamis in their hair and keep Max from seeing them.

Maybe because with this visit, they would be one step closer to facing Hawkmoth and turning him over to the authorities, leaving Adrien without any parents whatsoever for the time being.

"Come in," Max said as soon as he spotted them, ushering them in through the window. He looked excited. "I'm glad you could make it. I have been successful on both counts," he continued, settling in front of one of the several computers sitting on his desk. He held up a flash drive. "The virus is on here. To put in on the computer, log in to the account you want to wipe and then plug in the flash drive." Suddenly he looked concerned. "Um, do you know how you're going to log into the account? I might be able to figure out how you could hack your way in if I knew the computer system, but-"

"We know the password," Chat Noir assured him. Nooroo had told Plagg what it was, and then Plagg had been sent back to verify it again to make sure he had heard right. "That's not an issue."

"I'm not even going to ask _how_ ," Max said with a sigh, and both superheroes hid a grin. "Okay. Great. So you long into the account you need and then plug this in. You'll have a popup asking for a password- that's this thing etched into the side of the flash drive here- and once you enter the password, it'll download onto the computer and go to work like a regular virus. I wanted to create a safety of sorts, in case this ever gets plugged into the wrong computer. It'll wipe everything quickly, but will keep up a screen looking like it's in progress until the computer is rebooted or until an anti-malware program is run. You should check and see if he has one running already, actually," Max warned them. "If he has one, turn it off before you plug anything in. The virus is new enough that it _might_ be able to slide past an anti-malware program, but don't count on it."

"Hopefully he doesn't have one," Ladybug said nervously. "That would look a little weird, coming back and finding the anti-malware suddenly off and a virus taking over the account."

"Not at all, actually," Max adjusted his glasses and then glanced from his computer screen back up at them. "Sometimes those programs just turn off or stop working for a moment for no good reason. Not often, but I _have_ heard of it happening. And the virus warning pop-up should cover most of the screen, so he won't be able to see the anti-malware window anyway. Or a lack of the anti-malware window, in this case." He handed the flash drive to Chat Noir to take, and he tucked it carefully into his pocket. "Anyway, I think that's all you need to know about that."

"This is _great_ , Max," Ladybug gushed, grinning widely. "Thank you so much!"

"It's not a problem," Max said modestly, but he was trying to hide his smile. "Oh, just one more thing- make sure you take any other flash drives out first. Otherwise, the virus could infect that and wipe it, and it could infect the next computer it's plugged into, too. And once the virus says that it's fully downloaded, you can unplug it from the computer."

Ladybug and Chat Noir nodded. Chat Noir could feel Wayzz nodding as well from his hiding spot in Chat's hair.

"Now, this is what I learned about your camera system," Max started, turning back to his computer. Chat Noir felt Wayzz shift and then spotted several blurs as the kwamis settled into spots where they could see what Max was doing better.

The next twenty minutes were filled with explanations about what Max had discovered about the camera system. He walked them through the whole process of setting a security feed on loop five times, slowly, and then answered all of their questions before walking them through it again and them demonstrating how to return the feed to normal.

"You'll need to dodge the cameras on your way out," Max told them. "There's no way that I could find to keep the cameras looping for, say, five more minutes before reverting back to normal."

"Not a problem," Chat Noir promised. After all, it would be the kwamis doing the camera stuff, not them. The superheroes would just have to know which cameras they would be passing so that they didn't go by any other ones accidentally. "We'll be careful."

"Any more questions, then?" Max asked. Chat Noir glanced over at Ladybug, who was glancing towards the kwamis. After a moment, she glanced back at Chat Noir and shook her head.

"I think we're good," Chat Noir told Max as Ladybug stepped back so the kwamis could flock to her and try to hide in her pigtails. He could spot Trixx's tail sticking out, and poor Wayzz had to be content with simply floating alongside Ladybug, sticking to the side that was further away from Max. "Thank you _so_ much. We couldn't do this without your help. Oh, and by the way..." Chat Noir fished in his other pocket for a moment, then pulled out the gift cards that he had bought for Max. Max hadn't asked for any payment, but it wouldn't have felt right to _not_ give him anything. He had nosed around a little bit as Adrien to figure out what Max's favorite stores for video game stuff and computer parts were, and then he had gone out and gotten a generous gift card from each. "These are for you, as thanks for your help."

Max took the cards, and then his eyes grew wide at the amounts on them. "I- I was happy to help. This- this is too much, really-"

"We insist," Ladybug said firmly.

"I was happy to do my part to help protect the city," Max insisted, though he was clutching the cards to his heart, as though worried that they would vanish. "And you two don't get paid for all of the work you do. I can't take your money."

At that, Chat Noir let an impish smirk slide onto his face. "Oh, it isn't _our_ money," he corrected, grinning wider at Max's puzzled look. " _Technically_ , those gift cards were paid for with money I stole from Hawkmoth."

* * *

 _A/N: Adrien no it's bad to steal, even if it IS from your supervillain father.  
_

 _So technically this chapter is set during ch. 8 of the main story (which as of 4/16 hasn't been posted), but I need to be able to post the next outtake at the same time as the next chapter (boo 3 outtake chapters during one main story chapter what was I thiiiinking), so this had to be posted a wee bit early._

 _As always, reviews make my day! :)_


	6. The Office Raid

**5\. The Office Raid  
** (set in the middle of ch. 8)

Moments after Chat Noir transformed, he spotted Ladybug swinging around the side of the building, bag of fake Miraculous things at her side. She somersaulted gracefully into the room, then straightened and raced over to join him. Halfway there, she paused and frowned, glancing around the large room. For some reason, her gaze lingered for several seconds on the open bathroom door.

"That's funny. I would have thought that Adrien would be at home today," she commented. She rounded the couch and stepped over to join Chat Noir. "I mean, it's convenient that he's not here because this is the easiest way to get in, but..."

"Maybe he's over at a friend's house," Chat Noir suggested, steering Ladybug out of the room. He didn't know how familiar Ladybug was with his civilian side- comments she had made before made him suspect that she might know him in person- so it would probably be better if they didn't linger in his room for too long. "Nathalie just stepped out, let's go!"

They ran across the atrium, kwamis zipping after them. Chat Noir threw open the door to the office and dashed in with Ladybug hot on his heels, though she paused for a second to shut the door behind them. He went right to the computer, trying his best to ignore the fact that his father would be _furious_ if he ever found out about this.

"Sweet, it looks like he was already using the Miraculous account!" Chat Noir exclaimed after he wriggled the mouse and _Locking Research_ came up on the screen. According to Plagg (or, rather, according to Nooroo), that was the name of his father's Miraculous account. He typed in the password quickly. "And he was using the Internet, so it isn't gonna be totally out of left field that he might get a virus."

"Does he have anti-malware?" Ladybug asked. She and Pollen were already throwing open the safe, carefully emptying one shelf at a time into an empty bag and then refilling it with the decoy scrolls. Wayzz had settled down with one of Mr. Agreste's journals and was paging through it, a look of interest on his small face.

Chat Noir checked. "Yup. Turning it off."

He plugged the first of the huge flash drives into his father's computer and started moving the first of the series of folders on his father's account onto it. He swore quietly as the transfer worked with agonizing slowness.

Thank goodness Nathalie was going to be gone for a while. If she had been in and out, he would have had to hide behind his father's desk and try to do the transfers without her noticing.

And Nathalie was _really_ observant. She would have noticed. He would have gotten into trouble.

"What's wrong?" Ladybug wanted to know. She glanced over, looking anxious. "Is there some security thing that we didn't know about?"

"No, these files are just really, _really_ large. They're going to take forever to move from the computer to my flash drives." Thank goodness he had gotten several flash drives with the largest capacity he could find. He would probably need the storage room. "I just hoped that this would go faster."

Ladybug glanced over his shoulder, and her eyes went wide. "Is that _one_ file? Holy crud!"

"It's a folder full of files," he corrected. "From the name, it looked like maybe it has the scans from the book."

"Oh, no wonder, then," Ladybug said, looking relieved. "Chat Noir, there are _hundreds_ of pages in that book! That'll probably be the biggest folder, unless the book files are split up into sections."

Chat Noir just shrugged. He hoped that Ladybug was right. Otherwise, they were going to be here all day.

"Why don't you come take pictures of the journal pages while that transfers?" Ladybug suggested. She pointed to the camera she had pulled out. "Then we can get more done-"

They both froze as the door clicked open and Nathalie strode in. She paused in the doorway when she caught sight of them, both incriminatingly frozen in front of the open safe. The kwamis dove out of sight.

It only took Nathalie a moment to compose herself. "Good morning," she said politely, striding towards her desk. "Don't mind me, I just need to get my purse. I'll be gone in a minute."

The superheroes just blinked at her, wide-eyed in fear. This had been what they had been worried about, being caught in the act by Nathalie. _Why hadn't Fu warned them that she was coming back in?_

"You _do_ know that there's security cameras all over the place, right?" Nathalie inquired as she dug behind her desk for her bag. "There's one in this office, and another in the atrium, and a few others outside. Do you need any help getting them disabled?"

She got a blank stare in reply. Chat Noir wasn't even certain that his ears were working right, or maybe it was his brain that was misinterpreting her words. Wasn't she going to call the police, or at least his father?

Nathalie clearly wasn't waiting for an answer. Instead, she sat down at her computer and looked at the security feeds. She glanced down at her screen, and then her eyes widened. "Oh! You already have the inside cameras on loop, great. Just be careful when you're leaving. I would suggest going out that window there, and then dropping straight down and going over the side wall. You'll keep out of sight of the cameras out there."

Chat Noir's brain was slowly coming back online. Nathalie was... helping them?

"Once I get back from this errand, I can review the footage while Mr. Agreste is getting freed and try to edit out anything that accidentally gets on tape then, but avoiding showing up on camera in the first place would be best." Nathalie got back up and glanced over at them. "...what?"

"You aren't going to call the police on us?" Ladybug questioned, still rather pale. "When we're stealing from your boss?"

Nathalie scoffed. "If you were stealing his personal belongings, then yes. But I know perfectly well that everything in that safe is related to him being Hawkmoth and that he stole most of it. Take it." Her eyes fell on the bag of fakes, and a small smile slid onto his face. "Are you replacing everything with fakes? Even better. I won't have to deal with his temper tantrums for losing that stuff then."

"So you _do_ know that he's Hawkmoth," Ladybug accused. Nathalie looked unbothered by the accusation in her voice.

"Of course. Do you really think he'd be able to get away with slipping off to that lair of his for hours without me noticing? He's threatened me to keep me quiet." Nathalie didn't look pleased about it. "I'd love to see him taken down. Also, he has a scroll in his desk that he's been working on translating, not that he's gotten very far. Most of what he knows about past users comes from old legends he's found." She walked over next to Chat Noir and crouched down to unlock one of the lower drawers with a key on her lanyard. She pulled it open and pulled out a scroll.

"Just try to arrange the sticky notes in the same way," Nathalie warned as she handed the scroll over to Ladybug. "The drawer will automatically lock when you close it. And he _does_ have scans of the book and the scrolls on his computer-"

"We're taking care of those," Chat Noir assured her as he found his voice again. Nathalie looked impressed.

"Fantastic. And I take it you have some way to hide that the files just deleted themselves?"

"Of course."

Nathalie looked pleased. "Good. Fantastic. Oh, before I forget- there's a flash drive with backup scans in the second drawer down- yes, that one," she said as Chat Noir yanked open the drawer to find it _full_ of flash drives. "And it should be labelled, Mr. Agreste labels _everything."_

Chat Noir dug for a couple seconds and then emerged victorious with a flash drive labeled _Miraculous_. "Just the one?"

"Correct."

"Thank you," Ladybug spoke up from where she was frantically peeling off and reattaching sticky notes from the scroll Nathalie had gotten for them. "We hadn't known about those."

"Did you know about the second Miraculous Mr. Agreste has?" Nathalie asked. Her phone beeped with a message, and she sent a slightly harried look at it. "The peacock?"

"We've switched it out with a normal pin that looks just like it," Chat Noir assured her.

"Great." Nathalie stepped towards the door, then paused again. "Also, if you could- _please_ don't tell Adrien about this yet, or let him know that you're here. He doesn't need to worry about his father getting arrested on top of everything else he has to do. Just steer clear of his room, okay?"

Chat Noir mentally groaned. Why did she have to mention him? Now Ladybug was going to wonder about where he was.

"Does Mr. Agreste have a plan for what would happen to Adrien if he got arrested?" Ladybug asked. She looked concerned, and Chat Noir's heart gave a little jump. She was so worried about him, and it was almost too much for his little kitty heart to bear.

Nathalie snorted. "Of course not. He always says that he doesn't need a plan for that, because he doesn't _plan_ on getting caught. So I wrote up a plan that would have Adrien's bodyguard and I caring for him in the even that Mr. Agreste cannot, and I just stuck it in with the rest of the forms that Mr. Agreste had to sign. He didn't even notice." There was a honk outside, and Nathalie glanced over her shoulder. "I have to go. Will you be forcing a final battle soon, or...?"

"It might be a couple weeks," Ladybug said. She shrugged at Nathalie's look. "We want to be sure that we'll be ready to face him without people getting hurt."

"Understandable. Let me know if I can help in any way in the future, but for now I have to run." Nathalie glanced around the room one more time, nodded at them, and then left.

They stayed silent until they heard the large front doors of the mansion close.

" _Wow_ ," Chat Noir breathed, a small smile starting to appear on his face. " _Wow_. Okay, I wasn't expecting that. I know Plagg said that he thought that she was being forced into silence, but he wasn't positive."

"Do we trust her, though?" Ladybug asked. She glanced around. "What do the kwamis think?"

Wayzz popped out of the wall. "I trust her," he reported. "She was startled at first, but there were no malicious vibes coming off of her. She was relieved to find that you knew about Mr. Agreste."

"Agreed," Trixx said, appearing from the safe. "The tripping over herself to help you was entirely genuine. That's nice to know that there _are_ adults here with their heads on straight."

Chat Noir let himself smile. Trixx was right; it truly _was_ good to know that Nathalie wasn't evil. That was a comforting thought, at least.

"Chat Noir, the file finished moving," Pollen reported. He jumped and spun back to the computer. Ladybug went back to the safe.

They worked in silence for a few more minutes. Ladybug finished her switch-out and moved on to taking pictures of the notes and pictures in Mr. Agreste's folder while Chat Noir moved the remainder of the (thankfully much smaller) files onto his own flash drive. Pollen and Wayzz helped Ladybug by moving pages that she had already photographed out of the way, speeding up the whole process.

"All files are moved," Chat Noir reported five minutes later. He pulled out the flash drive and flashed a smile over his shoulder at Ladybug. "Now time for the virus."

"You sound eager," Ladybug said with a laugh. "Is that something you've been long forward to?"

" _Definitely_."

A minute later, the Max-made virus was ripping through the computer. Chat Noir smirked, pocketed all of his flash drives, and went to go help Ladybug.

"I can use the camera on my staff," he suggested, sliding out one of the notebooks. "Dunno how we'll get it onto Master Fu's computer, but I suppose we can figure that out later."

Ladybug just nodded, too focused to respond. Trixx zipped over to Chat Noir's side to flip pages for him.

"How many of these journals did Master Fu want us to scan?" Chat Noir asked. He desperately wanted to read some of the pages he was photographing, but there wasn't the time for that now.

Well. Okay, technically there _was_. Nathalie and the Gorilla would be gone for the better part of an hour, probably, but they probably shouldn't dawdle. Besides, there was the ever-present threat of his father getting impatient with being trapped and simply transforming and _cutting_ his way out of the elevator.

"Just the last couple, I think," Ladybug said. She looked almost done with her first one. "Since they would be the most likely to have accurate information about the temple and about Mr. Agreste's wife."

"Got it."

Chat Noir photographed every page in the journal in record time. He could see his mother's handwriting on some of the pages, and he was desperate to know what she had written. Ladybug was putting her second journal away as he closed his and put it back at the bottom of the stack in the safe.

"We've been here for nearly half an hour," Ladybug said anxiously, glancing towards the window. "And we've done three journals, plus the folder. I think we should clean up and get out of here. Mr. Agreste is super-impatient, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets fed up and cuts his way out."

"He's definitely been cursing a lot," Trixx piped up. "I didn't even know some of those words existed!"

Chat Noir cringed. _That_ was a bit embarrassing.

"Okay, let's do that. And we've got all of the original scrolls?"

"Yup!" Trixx said cheerfully. "There aren't any ancient artifacts left in that safe. We can comb the rest of the room while you two make sure everything is in order."

Two minutes later, the safe was convincingly rearranged and the kwamis hadn't found anything else of interest. Chat Noir made sure that he had all of his flash drives and Ladybug made sure that her bag was securely zipped shut. They raced out while Wayzz and Trixx stayed back to put the cameras back to normal.

"Wait," Ladybug said suddenly, freezing outside of Adrien's door. "Nathalie said not to disturb Adrien, but he isn't here."

"Maybe he just snuck out," Chat Noir suggested, hoping that she didn't notice how his voice had suddenly gone up in pitch. "He's done that before, right? Maybe he just decided to take advantage of none of the adults being home to check on him."

Ladybug relaxed and laughed. "Yeah, that's true. You're right. Let's go, Kitty. I'm sure Master Fu is waiting to hear how things went."


	7. Gabriel Agreste&the Plague of Misfortune

**Gabriel Agreste and the Plague of Misfortune**

These days, it seemed that bad luck dogged Gabriel Agreste's footsteps, and he was fairly certain that he wasn't even being (that) dramatic in saying that.

First it had been his eye injury and that strange kwami in the house. Then the roof of his lair sprung a leak, right over where he always stood. One of the buttons for his elevator broke, and he wasted an entire day trying to fix it before discovering that one of the pieces had gone missing. The window shutters jammed partway open, letting more than a few butterflies escape while he tried to fix it (but at least no one in the streets below seemed to notice anything). His phone battery suddenly stopped charging properly. A fabric order didn't submit properly. Money had mysteriously gone missing from his wallet while he was out at a doctor's appointment to check on his still-healing eye. His elevator broke down with him on it, trapping him in a _very_ tight place for several hours, and after he was finally freed Gabriel discovered that he had somehow gotten a virus on his computer and it had completely wiped out all of his files with the high-definition scans of the scrolls and the Miraculous book and deleted his bookmarks of the sites he had found with legends of what he thought might be past Miraculous holders. That wouldn't have been a huge deal, but somehow he had misplaced the flash drive with all of his backup scans.

At least he still had the hard copies to work with. He had been doing most of his (failed) translation attempts with one of the scrolls, and at least he still had _that_ , not that he had really been focusing on that for a while.

Still, he had raged, fed up by the entire day. In a fit of paranoia, he demanded that Nathalie review the security camera footage. He found it hard to believe that all of his trouble was just a coincidence. He couldn't be that unlucky.

There was nothing on any of the security camera tapes. The motion detector that Nathalie had turned on when she left had not gone off. Gabriel had been forced to admit that the virus that had wiped all of the files on his Miraculous account (though thankfully not his design account, though he had that thoroughly backed up just in case something like this happened) was apparently real and was entirely his own fault thanks to him looking at somewhat dodgy websites during the course of his Miraculous research without first ensuring that his anti-malware program was actually on and up-to-date.

In the end, it didn't really matter, Gabriel reminded himself as he unlocked his safe and triple-checked that the books and scrolls were still there. There wasn't a ton of material that had been on the computer that he didn't have elsewhere, so all he had lost was his bookmarks and PDFs of assorted legends that he had found that he had thought might help him recover his wife. Even that wasn't a big deal anymore. He had long since given up the idea of trying to get Emilie back in any way except with the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous, and he had memorized all of the information that he would need to know about that. Besides, he could more or less remember the few bookmarks that he was interested in that were about potential past Miraculous holders and what their powers might be, and if not he _could_ just look them up again.

(With the anti-malware program on, of course. He wasn't going to repeat his past mistakes again.)

Of course, he had to get his computer back first before he could do that.

"Have you gotten the computer cleaned yet?" Gabriel demanded impatiently as he watched Nathalie hover over his computer, frown on her face. As far as he could tell, the virus hadn't affected his design account, but he didn't want to risk it by using his computer again until that virus was wiped from it.

"I've run six different highly-rated anti-malware programs on your computer, and none of them have found anything," Nathalie reported.

Gabriel strode over to her to peer over her shoulder. "So it's clear?"

"Not at all. Whatever virus you got is so new that the programs haven't updates to recognize it yet." Nathalie let out a huff as yet another top-of-the-line computer scan came up empty. "I might need to call in a pro to get your virus cleaned off so you can use the computer again."

Gabriel scowled. Several more hours of work lost, and he couldn't even make good use of his time because the elevator was still not in working condition, since his contractor had several other jobs to work on first.

On top of everything else, Gabriel was still puzzled by the fact that he hadn't been attacked yet. He spent every waking hour of the day (and some non-waking hours as well) paranoid and on edge, waiting for the superheroes to attack.

Nothing. It had been _weeks,_ and still nothing had happened.

By now, Gabriel was fully convinced that Nooroo's assumption was right and it _had_ been the turtle kwami investigating him rather than the cat kwami. He thought that maybe the Turtle holder just hadn't been able to contact Ladybug and Chat Noir, though that didn't exactly make _sense_ considering that he must have given them their Miraculous and should have known where to find them. Perhaps he wanted to investigate Gabriel more first.

Perhaps the Turtle kwami was roaming the halls of the mansion even now, figuring out Gabriel's strengths and weaknesses. The thought made Gabriel uneasy.

Spied on, in his own home. And cameras didn't even record kwamis, which meant that he couldn't try to spot and trap the turtle kwami like that.

"Or perhaps there's been something keeping this Turtle person from contacting the superheroes," Gabriel mused that night before bed as he sipped from a glass of wine. It helped calm his jittery nerves enough for him to sleep, though he didn't drink so much that it might affect his response time should he get attacked. "If he was ill- but unless he was old, he would have recovered by now."

Nooroo swallowed the mouthful of orange he had been chewing on. "Well, if it's still the same person, which it may very well be, he'd be in his...180s, I think?"

Gabriel _choked_ , sending red wine flying out his nose and spraying from his mouth.

"A hundred and _eighty?_ Are you sur- wait, no, humans can't live that long. You've forgotten about the human life span. Surely it's been passed down once or twice since when you remember last."

"Turtles have the gift of longevity," Nooroo said, ignoring the way the wine Gabriel had spat out was dripping off of his face and onto the bed sheets. The kwami had (naturally) managed to dodge every last drop. "And yes, one hundred eighty is old even for a turtle, but that perhaps is because in the olden days, people became suspicious of those who lived too long, so the Turtle miraculous holders tended to pass it on long before they would have died had they kept it."

Gabriel had practically stopped listening now. "So it's possible that he's fallen seriously ill and can't talk to those _pests_ ," he mused, even as he wiped his face. "Or perhaps he died, and his bracelet and that _pesky_ kwami was buried with him. But there's no way for me to know for sure, I suppose." Nooroo wouldn't tell him who the Turtle was (or who it had been), Gabriel knew that. His kwami occasionally passed on information when he felt like it, but that information now rarely lined up with what Gabriel _really_ wanted to know, and no amount of bribes or threats would change that.

Perhaps all of his worries were for naught. Perhaps the only person who knew about his supervillain side activities besides Nathalie was far under the ground now, and their kwami unclaimed and inactive. But Gabriel wasn't going to let down his guard, not for one moment.

After all, his enemy could very well be lying in wait, watching for Gabriel to let his guard down so he could attack.

And Gabriel could not- _would_ not- let him win.

* * *

 _A/N: A bit of a slow piece here, but this was mostly to show what Mr. Agreste was (or wasn't) noticing.  
_

 _Okay, so about the money for Max's gift cards thing- I ended up coming up with a little bit more of a backstory for that, and I'm so annoyed that I couldn't find a way to work that into any of the last few chapters. So Plagg grabbed the money from Mr. Agreste's wallet when it was in his desk, and he couldn't just phase through stuff with the money if he was just carrying it like normal (and the floating money would show up on the security cameras), so he stuffed it in his mouth and brought it back to Adrien that way. Adrien had to air out the money before using it to buy gift cards, but it still smelled faintly of Camembert when he handed the bills over to some very confused cashiers. And thanks to the timing/nothing showing up on the security cameras, Mr. Agreste just assumed that he had somehow gotten pickpocketed when he went to his doctor's appointment. He didn't end up reporting the loss to the police because he didn't think that amount was worth it._

 _Another quick note- I'm going to Canada tomorrow for a bird-banding gig for a month and a half. There's no internet (...or running water) on site, and while we go into town fairly regularly there will be other things that take priority over posting. I'll try to finish up PatBC in a fairly timely manner, but posting will entirely depend on if my ride is willing to stay in town long enough for me to get everything formatted and up._

 _(also pls send well-wishes that my flight will go normally. I do not have a fabulous track record with getting across the boarder without incident. I swear it isn't my fault 95% of the time.)_

 _As always, reviews make my day! :)_


	8. A Superhero Family

Tom Dupain had been having a relatively normal day. He had gotten up at his normal time, had no problems with the baking, no weird customers, and a normal (perhaps a little higher than normal) amount of product sold. His main exciting event of the day was meant to be his daughter's friend-slash-crush Adrien coming over for dinner, when he could have a fun time teasing the two of them and having a pun-off with Adrien.

It was all very normal, but Tom liked normal. Normal meant that nothing was going wrong and turning into a disaster.

He and Sabine had just finished cleaning up the bakery and were about to head upstairs for the night when there was a knock at their door. Sabine went to answer it as Tom straightened the register and took the extra cash in it back to the safe.

"Master Fu!" Sabine exclaimed, and Tom glanced over through the doorway to see an elderly man who he recognized as a frequent customer. "Hello! Uh, can we do something for you?"

"I certainly hope so," Fu said mysteriously. He glanced at the street behind him. A few people still roamed the streets, even though it was getting close to dinner. "Though perhaps not here?"

Still looking slightly puzzled, Sabine nodded and waved Fu in, locking the door behind him. The small man moved faster than Tom would have expected, following Sabine up the stairs with surprising speed, considering his age. Tom followed, wondering what the man wanted that couldn't be discussed downstairs. Of course, it would probably be nice for Fu to be able to sit down while they talked about whatever he wanted to discuss. The man looked rather frail, though he certainly didn't _move_ like he was on the brink of breaking.

"Come in," Sabine said as they reached their living room. She opened that door and ushered Fu in. Tom and Sabine exchanged a puzzled look before following him.

Tom had no idea what Fu might want, but surely it wouldn't hurt to at least sit down and entertain the other man. He was probably lonely and in some need of company.

"Would you like some tea?" Sabine offered, going over to the stove to put some water on. She pulled down several tins of tea leaves. "We have green, black, white, mint...?"

"White tea sounds lovely," Fu said, settling himself on the couch. "Thank you."

"How is your business going?" Sabine asked as she set the water on to boil, and Tom startled. Someone as old as Fu was still working? Surely he should be happily retired by now. Perhaps it was just a small side business or something to fill his days?

"Quite well," Fu said serenely. "Plenty of customers, as usual. I keep busy. And I know the bakery is doing well. There always seems to be a line out the door in the mornings."

Tom just nodded a bit awkwardly and settled down on the other couch. If Fu was at all uncomfortable with sitting in what _should_ have been an almost-stranger's living room, he didn't show it. There was a serene expression on his face as he exchanged small talk with Sabine while the water heated, as though this was just a normal social visit.

"So you wanted to discuss something?" Sabine asked, coming over with two cups of tea. She handed one to Fu and one to Tom, then went back to get a cup for herself. "What is it?"

Fu nodded, still smiling. He took a sip of his tea. "Correct. You see, Ladybug and Chat Noir have discovered who Hawkmoth is, and they plan to spring a surprise attack on him shortly. However, I'm a little too old and not quite intimidating enough to help them. So, Tom, they suggested that I ask _you."_

Tom's mind short-circuited. _What?_ _ **Him?**_ _Face off against a supervillain? And how does this man know what Ladybug and Chat Noir are up to? Why would they go to him?_

"You would just be borrowing my Miraculous on that day, of course, should you accept," Fu said, still looking as calm as though he was discussing the weather and not Tom apparently becoming a _superhero_ for the day and facing off against a supervillain that had been plaguing the city for the better part of a year. And apparently this little old man was a _superhero_ , which was utterly unbelievable. Fu looked like he could be knocked over by a strong gust of wind. "I suspect that if I had it off for long, I might start to notice some detrimental effects to my health. But you would mainly be accompanying the heroes for the intimidation factor, which I do not exactly have anymore. And also for backup support should it come to a proper fight, I suppose, but the Turtle is mainly defense, not offense, and you would have quite a large shield."

Tom was staring at Fu, wide-eyed. Sabine's tea was frozen halfway between her saucer and her mouth. Finally, after a few more seconds of staring, Tom found his voice.

"Why me? I mean, I'd be willing to help, but- why me, out of all the people in Paris? I'm no fighter." He had seen Ladybug and Chat Noir fighting the akumas, of course, and he always marveled at their skills. Tom had figured that they were maybe trained from childhood to use their weapons. He had never taken a combat class of any sort in his entire life.

Fu just smiled. "The turtle is a protector, first and foremost. Like I said, a shield is the main weapon. You would be able to wield a large enough shield to block any attacks, and you could easily shove Hawkmoth back should he lunge at you."

Tom gulped. Well, _that_ was a terrifying thought. He would rather stay away from lunging supervillains. The only exception would be if said supervillain was lunging at Marinette or Sabine, in which case Hawkmoth better watch his back. _No one_ threatened his little girl or his wife and got away with it.

"We also wanted to ask _you_ if you would be a temporary Fox holder," Fu added, turning to Sabine. Tom couldn't help but gape- _another_ thing? How many bombshells was this Master Fu going to drop in one visit? "You would be entirely out of the line of fire- or, rather, out of Hawkmoth's line of sight. We just need the Fox to create an illusion, to make it look like Chat Noir and Ladybug are in two places at once."

Sabine looked positively puzzled at that. "Why would they need to be in two places at once? And I thought there had already been a Fox superhero out! What happened to her?"

Fu looked pleased at the questions. Perhaps he thought that meant that they were accepting. Tom wasn't so sure about that, not yet. He was still apprehensive about this whole 'going against a supervillain' thing. "The illusions would stand with the Turtle by Hawkmoth's front door, should Tom accept. Ladybug and Chat Noir would hide inside. While Hawkmoth is distracted with the 'three' of you in front, Ladybug and Chat Noir will come in from behind and restrain him, then take his Miraculous. Without the Fox, we would either have to risk a front attack or have Hawkmoth suspicious and on edge if only the Turtle showed up at his door." He took a sip of his tea. "As for the Fox superhero... she had been temporary. She would make a fantastic permanent holder later on, but we believe that she perhaps doesn't have the right temperament to do this particular mission."

"I'll do it," Sabine said immediately. "Ladybug and Chat Noir- they look like they're just _kids_. If they trust me to help them come out of their final fight unscathed, I'll do it."

Fu smiled.

There was absolutely no way Tom was going to _not_ accept Fu's offer now, not that he had _seriously_ been planning to turn it down before. If he was offered the opportunity to protect his city alongside his wife and lend a little help to the two superheroes that had been protecting them for most of a year, then he would do it. Taking down Hawkmoth would also make Marinette safer, since the akuma attacks at her school would come to a stop.

Besides, Sabine was right. Ladybug and Chat Noir looked uncomfortably young for the responsibility that they had been given, and they shouldn't have to face off with their arch-enemy without backup. They had picked out him and Sabine out of everyone in Paris to trust, and Tom wasn't going to let them down. "I'll do it, too. Uh, can I ask who Hawkmoth is?"

Fu's smile widened. "I think I'll let Ladybug and Chat Noir tell you that, actually." He raised his voice. "Ladybug? Chat Noir? We're ready for you to come down."

Tom froze, then then opened his mouth to warn Fu that they weren't alone in the house. Marinette and Adrien were just upstairs, and unless they were on her balcony, they would _definitely_ hear Fu and want to come down to investigate what was going on. The man had quite the set of vocal cords on him. But before Tom could say anything, Marinette's trapdoor opened and Marinette came down, followed closely by Adrien. Tom glanced at Fu, worried that he might be irritated at Tom and Sabine for not warning him that the kids were in the house, too, but instead Fu was smiling at the two of them, as though he had been _expecting_ them.

Suddenly things clicked into place. Superheroes that Sabine had once mentioned were likely not much older than Marinette. Ladybug's blue eyes and black pigtails. Chat Noir's blond hair and green eyes. Marinette suddenly starting to get notes home about missed classes after Ladybug showed up on the scene. Adrien and Marinette suddenly becoming a _whole_ lot closer, but apparently not dating. They must have revealed their secret identities to each other then, to cause such a drastic change.

His daughter was a superhero, and her friend-slash-crush was her superhero partner.

"Hi, Master Fu," Marinette said politely, coming to a stop by the TV. Adrien stuck to her side like glue, his hand wrapped around hers. Tom tracked their intertwined hands with interest.

Perhaps they weren't dating _yet_ , but he had an inkling that it wouldn't be long. He heartily approved.

"Your parents have kindly agreed to step in as temporary holders, Ladybug," Fu said, sounding quite pleased. "I have the Fox Miraculous here with me for Sabine to try out, and perhaps Tom can try transforming with the Turtle Miraculous tonight before I leave. But before that... they wanted to know who Hawkmoth is."

Immediately Adrien cringed, curling towards Marinette. She wrapped her arms around him and let him drop his head on top of hers. Tom frowned- _that_ was a strange reaction to being asked about the identity of their arch-enemy- and glanced towards Sabine. She looked seriously concerned.

"Adrien?" Sabine prompted softly. "Honey?"

"He's my father," Adrien said, so softly that Tom could barely hear him. For a moment, he was sure that he had heard wrong, but Adrien's expression didn't lie.

Tom felt his heart drop. Hawkmoth was Adrien's _father_? Oh, the poor boy. And he had surely known that for a while, if they had been _planning_ their final battle. Add on the fact that he had been fighting his own father for months at this point, and had nearly been killed several times doing so...

 _Ow_.

Tom was ready to just straight-up adopt the boy. Adrien deserved _so_ much better.

"Oh, _sweetheart_ ," Sabine said immediately, setting her tea aside to go over and hug Adrien. "I'm so sorry, dear. But we're so proud of both of you. You've been doing _amazing_ work for the city."

"And you're always welcome here," Tom chimed in. He eyed his daughter, who was watching Adrien with a soft look, and his tone turned a hint mischievous. "...though I suspect that Marinette has already made that clear, hmm?"

Marinette turned pink.

* * *

After a few minutes of teasing the two teens and learning a bit more about the Miraculous and the kwamis that came with them, they all settled back down on the couch and a couple chairs that had been pulled up. It seemed that they had a lot to discuss.

"We've already done several preliminary strikes," Fu explained. "Just recently, we recovered a number of Miraculous-related artifacts from Mr. Agreste, including a second Miraculous. And prior to that, Plagg destroyed Mr. Agreste's missiles-"

"His- excuse me, _what?_ " Tom demanded, incredulous. Sabine gave a small noise of agreement, looking astounded.

Fu looked somber as he nodded. "Plagg and Tikki discovered that Mr. Agreste had _quite_ the collection of missiles protecting his lair. They- well, Plagg in particular- spent quite a while destroying all of the gunpowder in them so that they wouldn't shoot off, and they've recently checked in on it to make sure Mr. Agreste hasn't fixed it."

Tom exchanged a look with Sabine. Suddenly this whole _go after Hawkmoth_ plan was sounding a whole lot more dangerous, even if the missiles had been disabled. "How do you know that all of the weapons have been destroyed? What if he has other stockpiles in the house or in the courtyard wall?"

"We can check on that," Fu assured Tom. "In fact, that's a fantastic idea. Plagg has been combing the house looking for other magical artifacts, but I should have him add checking the outer walls to that list."

The little red _kwami_ perched on Marinette's shoulder giggled. "Oh, he's going to hate that. Plagg doesn't like flying through the walls at all. He says that it makes everything taste dusty afterwards."

"Where _is_ Plagg, by the way?" Fu asked curiously. "Is he not here?"

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a look and then spoke in unison. "Popcorn coma."

Tikki sighed, looking exasperated. The expression looked a little funny on her cute face. Fu didn't even look surprised. Apparently this _Plagg_ eating himself into unconsciousness was a common occurrence.

"Would you like to try transforming?" Fu asked Sabine. "After all, you'll be the one who needs to practice your powers the most. The Fox's Mirage is easy enough if you don't look _directly_ at the Mirage, or if the person you need to trick is a child or really gullible. It's harder if you want to trick someone who is paying attention and is up close to the Mirage, which is what we'll be up against."

Sabine nodded. Tom sat up, interested to see what his wife would look like as a superhero. Fu pulled a small black box out of her pocket and handed it over. Sabine took it, opened it, and then let out a shriek as a glowing orange globe popped out of the box.

"What-" Tom started, equally startled, and then the light solidified into a little foxlike figure- another _kwami_ , like Tikki and Wayzz and Plagg. It gave itself a hearty shake and then looked at Sabine.

"Hi! I'm Trixx!" the little fox said. It grinned, showing little fangs. "And I'll be your temporary kwami!"

"Why don't you go ahead and transform?" Fu suggested. "All-"

"All you have to say is 'Transform me'!" Trixx piped up. "And you should probably stand up first."

Sabine nodded, stood up, and, in a flash of orange and white, transformed. She reappeared as a superhero, though her outfit incorporated a lot of elements from her normal clothes. She had an orange and white cheongsam with black piping around the edges, and black leggings. Orange fox ears perched in her hair and an orange and white mask crossed her face, but otherwise her outfit didn't _scream_ "superhero" like Ladybug and Chat Noir's did.

It _really_ suited Sabine, actually. Tom wondered if he could maybe persuade Wayzz to include an apron in his transformation, or at the _very_ least to have a t-shirt and loose pants instead of the skintight suits that Ladybug and Chat Noir seemed to favor.

"Oh, I like this," Sabine said happily, smoothing down the skirt. Long gloves covered her arms. "It's quite stylish."

As Fu started to explain the Fox's powers to Sabine, Tom crossed the room to talk to the two kids. He was concerned about Adrien. Clearly discovering that his father was the city's supervillain wasn't a new thing, and he couldn't even imagine how difficult it must be to continue acting like normal.

How long had Adrien known? Had he had Marinette's support for that whole time, or had the superheroes not revealed their identities to each other until more recently? Was Adrien keeping up in school, or was he too distracted to focus? Was there any plan for what would happen to Adrien after his father was in jail?

They _were_ planning on putting his father in jail, right? Tom didn't think Adrien would be entirely safe if Mr. Agreste was still in the same house, even if Mr. Agreste no longer had his Miraculous. All it would take would be catching Chat Noir on the security cameras near Adrien's room and Mr. Agreste would know that his son had a Miraculous. After that, it wouldn't be long before Mr. Agreste would make an attempt to steal the ring and terrorize Paris as a new Chat Noir.

...though he would probably have a different name, now that Tom thought about it. Something that reflected him being evil.

"Well, you two have been busy," Tom said, leaning against the counter next to the two kids' chairs. "I can't believe you managed to keep being _superheroes_ secret for so long."

"The kwamis said that we couldn't tell anyone-" Marinette started, clearly expecting a scolding of some kind. Tom cut her off with a booming laugh.

"Oh, I wasn't scolding you, sweetheart," Tom assured them. "I can understand the need to keep it a secret. I'm just astounded that you've managed to keep on top of your schoolwork and babysitting and commissions while saving the city almost daily. That must have been a lot to keep track of."

Marinette and Adrien exchanged a look and then nodded in unison. "I had to make all of these ridiculous excuses all the time," Adrien told him. "I'm amazed no one has really said anything about it."

"It'll be nice to be able to not miss any class once this is over," Marinette said. "Or have to skip out of get-togethers with Alya, or need to figure out what to do with Manon during an akuma attack, or... oh, there's just so _much_. I'll like not having to make ridiculous excuses."

"Well, we'll appreciate not getting notes home about missed classes," Tom said with a laugh. "And we'll also appreciate not having supervillains running through the streets. It wasn't great for business when no one wanted to go out in the streets for half the day."

"I'm sorry-" Adrien started, face falling. Tom cut him off, too, before Adrien got the wrong idea.

"I wasn't blaming you, son," Tom told him. "It's not your fault at all. _Never_ think that we're blaming you."

Adrien looked relieved and nodded. Tom patted his shoulder.

"So when did you find out about your father being Hawkmoth?" Tom wanted to know. "And when did you two find out the other was your superhero partner? I'm guessing it hasn't been long."

"We did the reveal...what, not quite a week ago?" Marinette asked, glancing over at Adrien. He half-nodded, half-shrugged. "And about Mr. Agreste... oh, I don't know. It's felt like not long at all and forever all at once. A bit over a month?"

"I can't even remember," Adrien agreed. He managed a smile at Marinette and reached over to hug her. "But Marinette has been there for me since she found out. She made sure that she was spending plenty of time with me at school and out, and then we, well." He shrugged, and there was _definitely_ the hints of a blush when he sent a fond look towards Marinette. "Once we did the reveal, we've practically been attached at the hip."

"I noticed," Tom informed him, delighting in the blushes he got out of the teens. "Now, I was wondering-"

He was cut off by the sound of a flute. Tom turned around to see Sabine play a short tune on her weapon- could a flute even be considered a weapon, really?- making a glowing orange ball form at the far end of the instrument. She flicked it off, and then a glowing mirage of Ladybug and Chat Noir quivered into being in front of her.

"Oh, that could use some work," Sabine said, leaning forward to get a better look. "It's a little see-through, and glow-y, and those movements are a little stiff."

"It improves with practice," Fu assured her. "Experienced Foxes- ones that have several years of transformation and practice- can do a secondary or more- oh, what is the word- more restrained version of Mirage. Instead of creating one large illusion, they can do several smaller ones before their timer gets set off. Those illusions are a little more realistic, generally, though I think that also has a practice factor to it."

"So what Lila did as Volpina was actually based in reality a bit?" Marinette asked, sounding surprised. "I thought that it was weird, that she had endless illusions and they were really good but Al- er, Rena Rouge- only had the one."

"With time comes control and endurance," Fu told her. "Yes, her 'powers' were based on Illusions instead of Mirage, and then the number... well, the number and size was completely unrealistic, but Foxes with decades of experience _can_ do quite a number of small illusions."

There was a beep from Sabine's necklace, and she jumped. One section of her necklace was flashing. "What was that?"

"Your timer, _Maman_ ," Marinette pointed out. "You have five minutes- well, maybe not quite as much this time, since Trixx didn't eat before you transformed-"

"I fed him at home," Fu assured her. "She should have five full minutes this time around."

"So we're going to have to work fast," Tom said. He was frowning. "What happens if Mr. Agreste doesn't want to come to the door right away and her timer runs down?"

"Well, we only need the illusions in place for about thirty seconds for them to do their work," Fu said as Sabine made the illusions move around. "They're there as a diversion. And if we have trouble getting Mr. Agreste to come out at first, then Sabine can always detransform, recharge, and then re-make her illusions once Mr. Agreste is at the door and have them come jumping over the courtyard wall."

"We could always do that to start with," Tom suggested. "I can somehow signal when the doors are open. Then Sabine can shoot that orange ball to the side of the house so Mr. Agreste doesn't see it."

Fu hummed and nodded. "I like your idea. Perhaps we should have a dinner together the night before we go to attack Mr. Agreste. Sabine, how long do you want to practice first?"

"Oh, I can be ready by this weekend," Sabine assured him. "I'll spend all the time I can practicing. If I can get some help with the counter in the afternoons, that would be great."

"We can help," Marinette said immediately. Next to her, Adrien nodded.

Fu looked pleased. "Fantastic. We can do dinner on Friday, then? To finalize the plans?"

"Sounds good," Sabine said. Her Miraculous beeped again, and she gave a little jump. "Oh, that _is_ going to take some getting used to. Can I make the illusions talk?"

"You can _try_ ," Fu said. "It can be really difficult. I would suggest letting Tom do the talking. It requires a strong familiarity with the noises you're trying to recreate- or, in this case, the voice you're trying to replicate. I would suggest sticking with trying to make only Ladybug speak, if at all."

Sabine nodded.

Several minutes later, the Mirage of the superheroes dissipated with a small _pop_ , and Sabine detransformed in a flash of light. Trixx flew out and flopped down onto the counter.

"Trixx eats fruit to recharge," Fu told them, pulling a small baggie of grapes out. He handed it to the kwami, who let out a squeal and dove in. "He prefers grapes, and honestly he can eat any food in a pinch, but fruit is best."

"What do the other kwamis eat?" Tom asked curiously as Trixx swallowed several grapes whole. "I know you mentioned Plagg eats popcorn."

Adrien, Marinette and Fu all let out a laugh. "Plagg prefers cheese, actually," Adrien told him. "Camembert or Brie is best. He just likes popcorn sometimes, too. Marinette introduced him to cheesy popcorn today, and it was a hit."

"Tikki likes sweets," Marinette told her parents. "Cookies, mainly, because they're easy to carry around, but anything sugary is good."

"I also quite like the petits fours you make," Tikki piped up. "Especially the chocolate ones! They're amazing."

"Wayzz quite likes veggies," Fu said. "And tea. Sabine, would you like to transform and try Mirage one more time before I have to leave? This time, try to picture Ladybug and Chat Noir as clearly as you can. If you have to have a photo in front of you, then do that."

Sabine nodded. As soon as Trixx emerged from the baggie, wiping grape juice from his face, she smiled at him. "Trixx, transform me!"

Several minutes later, Fu had taken off and Sabine had sent the teens off to gather their things from upstairs before dinner. Tom took the opportunity to slip up behind his wife as she warmed up soup for their dinner.

"Well, _that_ was unexpected," Tom said. He let out a small sigh and hugged Sabine. "Our daughter, a superhero..."

"It's scary," Sabine agreed. "But she and Adrien have been doing so well, and it'll be over soon. I'm glad they were comfortable enough to come to us for help. I'll feel better being close by when they face off with Hawkmoth, even if we're not exactly experienced fighters."

"We just have to hope that everything goes to plan," Tom said, letting go of Sabine and heading over to set up the table for dinner. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sabine's illusions still in the corner of the room, soundlessly conversing with each other. "It won't be easy, and it's not going to be fun for Adrien, but once everything is over, Paris will be so much safer."

They just had to get through this first.

* * *

 _A/N: Next up: final battle! It'll be another one of those chapters where both the main story and the Outtakes get updated simultaneously (...I better get editing on those) since some people might want to read the Outtakes chapter midway through the main chapter (since it fills in what Plagg's POV misses). I'm planning to update HTFAM first, though (and then poooooossibly a Troublemaker one-shot), then come back to this again.  
_

 _As always, reviews make my day! :)_


	9. Final Battle

**Final Battle**

 _Set in the middle of PatBC Chapter 10_

Tom had started the day nervous. Today was the day they would take Mr. Agreste- _Hawkmoth-_ down. Tom had never been in a combat situation before, and he wasn't looking forward to it. Wayzz had told him just to rely on instinct, but he was pretty sure that his instinct in squaring up against just another man versus a superpowered villain wasn't exactly the same thing.

The akuma attack mid-morning, right before they would have headed out to confront Mr. Agreste, had thrown him off. He and Sabine spent a lot of time pacing, watching the television in the corner of the room and occasionally dashing downstairs to check on their workers. Tension mounted as the akuma fight dragged on, and there were several close calls that had them chewing on their fingernails and itching to dash out and help.

"At least Chat Noir still has his head in the game," Fu said from where he had settled on the couch. He had a scroll open in his lap, and a notebook next to him for the translation. Tom had tried to peek at it, but Fu wasn't writing in a language that he recognized. "I was worried that he wouldn't be able to get down to work today, but he's still focused. I've only seen a couple mistakes."

Tom just nodded and glanced at the TV again.

"Ladybug was overly concerned about Chat Noir at the start of the fight and that was distracting her, but now she's settled down to business," Fu continued. "They're getting close, I think. The fight will be over soon- oh, and there she goes with Lucky Charm."

It didn't take long for the fight to wrap up after that, and then Ladybug and Chat Noir were bounding back across the city towards the bakery. Tom and Sabine hurried to get lunch on the table for the two of them, and food for the two tired kwamis. Adrien seemed more out of it now that there wasn't an immediate threat present.

Hopefully he would be able to focus again once they got to the mansion. Out of the four of them, Adrien as Chat Noir was the best fighter. They were planning on there not being a whole lot of _fighting_ , of course, but they had to be prepared in case something went wrong.

* * *

Tom steadied his breath as he stared down at the Agreste mansion. He had transformed alongside Ladybug and Chat Noir, and then together they had headed over. The two teens had left him standing across the street so they could circle around and get in the mansion through Adrien's bedroom windows without being detected.

Up on the rooftop, Tom shifted anxiously. He didn't particularly like being up so high, even when he was transformed and largely invulnerable. From here, he could see Sabine, transformed and crouched on the mansion's roof. She was largely hidden from the ground, and that was just the way they wanted it. He could also see the people in the street below, finally emerging from the buildings they had taken shelter in during the akuma attack. Some of them were pointing to the two police cars slowly pulling into position in front of the mansion, but for the time being most weren't paying that much attention. In the park, he could see Fu settling down on the fountain so he could keep an eye on the whole thing.

Tom's shell let out a beep- his signal from Ladybug and Chat Noir that they were in position- and he gave a huge leap, crossing the street and dropping down into the Agreste courtyard. He expanded his shield just a bit, then squared his shoulders and strode up to the giant doors.

He knocked, then waited. A glance up told him that Sabine was peering over the edge of the roof, ready to activate her Mirage as soon as he saw the doors open and gave the signal. She was also ready to be backup as needed.

Truthfully, Tom wasn't sure how much help either he or his wife would be as backup if things went sour and the experienced superheroes- his daughter and Adrien, he _still_ wasn't fully used to that- needed help. They had had months and months of fighting experience, and he... well, he and Sabine had none. Still, seeing her calmed his nerves, and Tom turned back to the door with the steeliest glare he could muster.

The door opened to reveal Nathalie, Mr. Agreste's assistant. Her eyes went wide as she took Tom in, and then her shoulders slumped and she let out a breath of relief.

"Oh, I was wondering when you would come," Nathalie said, composing herself quickly and speaking quietly and quickly. "I've been hoping- anyway. Are the police-?"

"Just outside the gate," Tom assured her. "Do you think you could get Mr. Agreste to come out without tipping him off that we're here?"

"Of course." Nathalie glanced around, then turned back to him. "Are the young superheroes here as well?"

"They'll be joining me shortly," Tom assured her. Nathalie nodded, then vanished back inside. The door remained slightly open, and Tom could hear her talking to Mr. Agreste. He didn't sound happy about being interrupted, and he was _definitely_ not happy that someone had gotten past the gate. Still, he eventually relented.

As soon as Tom heard the distinct _clack-clack_ of Mr. Agreste's shoes coming towards the door, he signaled Sabine. There was a quiet whistling from above, and then an orange ball sailed over to the side of the house. Seconds later, the Mirages of Ladybug and Chat Noir jumped over the wall and landed on either side of him, far enough back and out that Tom wouldn't accidentally hit either of them. They settled into place just before Mr. Agreste flung the doors wide open, a scowl on his face.

Tom took great pleasure in watching the color drain from Mr. Agreste's face as soon as he spotted the superheroes standing at the door. His mouth worked wordlessly for a few moments as he spluttered.

"But- but you aren't a hundred eighty years old!"

"No, I am not," Tom agreed, wondering where on Earth Mr. Agreste had gotten that idea. _A hundred eighty years old?_ Perhaps the question was some sort of strange diversion technique or something. "But never mind that. You have some things that aren't yours. Kindly turn them over _now_."

Mr. Agreste gathered himself and glared up at Tom. "I'm not simply going to _turn_ anything over. And I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm rich. I don't need to _steal_ anything."

Behind Mr. Agreste, the real Ladybug and Chat Noir moved into position at the top of the staircase, but Tom didn't let his gaze flicker towards them. He briefly noted that Nathalie had come out of the office again and had clearly noticed the dual set of superheroes, but she wasn't saying anything. Tom then noticed that Mr. Agreste had gone for something in his pocket, which wasn't a good sign.

"So if we're done with this ridiculousness, I'll thank you to leave the grounds," Mr. Agreste continued, the tone of his voice turning icy. Still, Tom could hear the nerves under the bluster. " _Now_."

Above them, something creaked. Tom glanced up briefly to see panels opening in the domed roof, and missile rigs emerging and turning to aim at Tom and the two illusions behind him. He fought down the natural panic that immediately welled up. Plagg had disarmed the missiles. He had nothing to worry about. Besides, he was wearing a magic super-suit.

That would _also_ never stop being weird. Thankfully that was only temporary.

"I think you know full well what I'm talking about," Tom said, matching Mr. Agreste's icy tone. He kept his gaze on the other man, refusing to be distracted. "You've been caught, _Hawkmoth_. Turn your Miraculous over."

Mr. Agreste's expression immediately turned nasty, and he mashed the _Launch_ button on the remote he had been carrying with a dark smile. "I think _not_."

Nothing happened. Mr. Agreste's expression wavered. He mashed it again, glancing a little frantically up at the roof, where the missiles were smoking rather morosely. One slid forward and clattered to the ground uselessly, breaking apart as it did. Mr. Agreste's eyes went wide and horrified for a moment, and then he recovered, scowling and drawing himself up, fingering something under his necktie. "Nooroo! Transform me!"

A purple light started to surround him, starting from his feet, and Tom resisted the urge to stumble backwards, his eyes widening in horror. They had hoped to avoid this- why weren't the other superheroes _acting-_

The familiar _whizz_ of a yo-yo zipping across the entry room was music to Tom's ears. In a second, Mr. Agreste- _Hawkmoth_ \- was restrained. He stumbled and swore as the cord tightened, struggling to loosen the cords binding his arms to his sides. His transformation was still going, slower by _far_ than the instantaneous transformations that Tom had seen before.

Was it possible that the butterfly kwami was causing the slower transformation? Could it resist, just enough to try to give them the upper hand?

Chat Noir vaulted across the room, eyes laser-focused as he slid up behind the still-transforming Mr. Agreste. There was a dark haze around his hand as he brought it up to shred the (rather ugly) peppermint-striped tie around Mr. Agreste's neck that was clearly hiding the Miraculous. Scraps of the fabric fell to the floor in shreds as Mr. Agreste tried to wriggle and twist away from Chat Noir, managing to duck away and keep his Miraculous the first time. Chat Noir swiped again and this time, his aim was true. The pin ripped away from the disintegrating remains of Mr. Agreste's collar.

Tom had only had a moment to feel victorious when a wave of purple magic, destabilized by the slow transformation and the Miraculous being torn away, flashed outward and hit him with the force of a speeding car, making him stumble even with the protection of his turtle shell shield. The illusions behind him vanished in a flash of orange smoke as the magic hit them, and the whole house shook with the force of the magical whiplash. Several more missiles were dislodged, clattering to the courtyard below, but Tom could barely spare them a thought.

Because he hadn't been the only one affected by the whiplash. Ladybug and Chat Noir had been hit even harder, both knocked off of their feet and thrown back several meters. Ladybug's yo-yo string had gone slack with her surprise and Mr. Agreste was shaking the loosened strings off, kicking them away and scrambling away.

And then he was lunging straight for Chat Noir, who was still clutching the butterfly pin in his fist.

Several things happened all at once. Tom lunged after Mr. Agreste, even though there was no way he would be able to intercept the other man before he reached Chat Noir. Chat Noir realized what was going on and scrambled backwards, eyes wide as he moved away as fast as he physically could. And Ladybug flipped herself upright in one fast move, her yo-yo flying out before her feet even hit the ground. Just before Mr. Agreste reached Chat Noir, the yo-yo caught him again.

(Tom took a moment to be proud of how fast she had recovered from her fall. That was _his_ little girl, refusing to let a supervillain keep her down!)

Mr. Agreste didn't fully stop moving even with his arms bound to his sides, lunging forward and making Ladybug stumble as she tried to slow him down. Chat Noir took the opening, as small as it was, and rolled to his feet, beating a strategic retreat so he could keep the Miraculous away from Mr. Agreste. He dashed to Ladybug's side to try to help her out, but there was no need. She had pulled out the second yo-yo to anchor herself, meaning that Mr. Agreste couldn't pull her around anymore.

"No!" Mr. Agreste protested, half-stumbling and half-shuffling towards Chat Noir, who immediately darted away. " _No!_ "

"Chat Noir, can you go open the gates?" Ladybug asked. She shifted her stance, tightening her grasp on the yo-yo that was holding Mr. Agreste fast. "The police are waiting outside."

Chat Noir nodded. He darted towards the door, handing the Butterfly Miraculous to Tom as he passed since Ladybug had her hands full, and then headed towards the gate, where Officer Raincomprix and several other officers waited. Tom could tell that Chat Noir was struggling to keep a detached, professional expression on his face.

The poor kid. They would have to hope that wrapping everything up here didn't take long.

Mr. Agreste was still twisting, scowling at Ladybug as he did. He seemed to be mouthing something, twisting his hand so that the palm faced Ladybug. When nothing happened, another round of swearing filled the room.

"Don't you _dare_ try using some magic spell on me," Ladybug spat, yanking on her line and sending Mr. Agreste stumbling. "You've _lost_. Accept your defeat _now_."

Instead of giving in, Mr. Agreste's wriggling and fighting increased when he saw the police approaching through the courtyard. Tom couldn't help but wince when he spotted the blood on Mr. Agreste's neck from where Chat Noir's claws had nicked the skin earlier. It was fairly obvious that it wasn't a serious injury- the man was still twisting and trying to fight, after all, and the wounds were hardly gushing- but he knew full well that Adrien would probably feel bad about it later on.

"No! You can't take me! What will happen to Adrien?"

Tom barely restrained the urge to growl at the man. _Now_ he was worried about his son? It was a little too late for that. Hawkmoth had been attacking the city for the better part of a year, and he had been planning the attacks for several months prior to that. He had had _plenty_ of chances to reconsider what he was doing, and instead he continued down the path to becoming a supervillain. He had even created akumas that had gone after his own son. Tom had to wonder how much of the concern was legit and how much of it was just a show in order to try to get a lighter sentence later on.

At least Chat Noir was out of earshot. He was talking with the police officers as they came up the steps, and had clearly missed his father mentioning him. He would have a hard enough time as it was without his father acting all _fatherly_ at the very last minute.

"I just wanted to get my wife back- to get my son's _mother_ back!" Gabriel continued. His white shirt was getting progressively more stained with blood now from the scratches on his neck as he fought, though Tom could tell that it looked worse than it actually was. "She was trapped when we were trying to recover the Miraculous. If you take me away, Adrien won't have any parents left!"

Tom took hold of Mr. Agreste's shoulder, effectively stopping him from fighting further. Mr. Agreste swore again- Tom had to fight down the urge to scold him about his language, there were _kids_ around- but finally stilled, scowling as the police stepped inside. As Officer Raincomprix clicked the handcuffs closed around Mr. Agreste's wrists and Ladybug retracted her yo-yo, he deliberated for a second. Should he say something about the efforts going on to free Mrs. Agreste from the temple trap?

Mr. Agreste's face crumpled as the police took firm hold of him, and Tom's decision was made. This was a man in pain, even if he _had_ been a supervillain and even if he _had_ completely failed to take his son into account when attacking the city. It would be cruel to _not_ tell him.

Besides, knowing that there had been other options that _didn't_ include becoming a supervillain and losing everything would be a punishment of its own.

"I was just trying to get my wife back," Mr. Agreste repeated hollowly. He still looked desperate. "I wasn't _intending_ to hurt anyone."

"We _are_ looking at old scrolls and legends to try to figure out how to free your wife from the trap in the temple," Tom told Mr. Agreste quietly, so the police behind him wouldn't hear. "We started researching possible solutions as soon as we figured out that it had happened. All of this could have been avoided if you only reached out to the Tur- er, to me in the first place instead of setting supervillains on the city. You could have had your wife back _without_ losing everything."

At that, Mr. Agreste's eyes went wide, and then he looked like he had had all of his energy and all of the fight sucked out of him at once as his shoulders slumped and his head dropped. Tom couldn't be positive about what the other man was thinking, of course, but he suspected that Mr. Agreste probably had a whole lot of regrets right about now. Had he simply used the Miraculous to find the Turtle and tell him about Mrs. Agreste and turn over the Miraculous and the scrolls, he could have gotten his wife back without breaking his son's trust and without destroying his own life.

Tom stepped back then, allowing the police to pull Mr. Agreste forward towards the police car waiting outside of the gate before following them to join his daughter and her partner. As the police passed Ladybug and Chat Noir, Tom could hear Chat Noir suck in a sharp breath, his eyes going wide. One glance told Tom that Chat Noir had finally caught sight of the blood on his father's neck.

Oh, _that_ wasn't good. They would have to leave soon, before Adrien could start breaking down.

As Tom passed the Butterfly miraculous off to Ladybug, he could hear Mr. Agreste ask the police if they could maybe just say that he was arrested for tax evasion or something instead of for being a supervillain, so that Adrien wouldn't be as affected by public backlash. There was a somewhat derisive snort from one of the officers at that.

Clearly they weren't feeling particularly sympathetic towards the man who had made them work overtime to try to minimize the panic and damage during akuma attacks.

"If you guys- well, if Ladybug and Chat Noir at least- could drop by the police station to give statements sometime this week, that would be great," Officer Raincomprix told the superheroes, pulling their attention away from Mr. Agreste. Chat Noir was visibly working to compose himself as he faced the officer. Behind Officer Raincomprix, another officer was talking to Nathalie and Adrien's bodyguard. "I understand if you aren't ready to talk today. You must be exhausted from the fight earlier."

Ladybug and Chat Noir looked grateful.

"Besides, we have a lot to deal with right now," Officer Raincomprix continued. "We need to find Mr. Agreste's son and talk to him, and figure out all of the legal stuff about who his guardian is going to be now, and- well. The testimony can wait, unless you think that there's something immediate you think we need to know?"

Ladybug held up the Butterfly Miraculous. "We recovered this from Mr. Agreste. It's the Butterfly Miraculous. If you want evidence photos of it now, maybe...?"

Officer Raincomprix reached partway towards the brooch and then paused, frowning when she pulled it back towards herself. "Normally, the procedure is to confiscate items relevant to a crime. But since we're talking about magical artifacts, I'm guessing you don't want this out of your hands? We would keep _very_ good care of it, you know."

Ladybug frowned right back at him. "The Miraculous aren't _normal_ items. I don't want to risk it falling into the wrong hands at all. All it takes is one person being a bit too curious, and then we could have another problem on our hands."

"Then a picture will have to suffice, I suppose." Officer Raincomprix pulled out a small camera and snapped several photos of the Miraculous. "Anything else you want me to look at before we meet again?"

Chat Noir nudged Ladybug, ducking his head to murmur something in her ear. Ladybug nodded and slid an arm around his waist before turning back to the officer.

"Can you check on Mr. Agreste's neck?" Ladybug asked. "It got accidentally injured when we were going for the pin, and it _really_ didn't look great."

"Of course, of course!" Officer Raincomprix assured her. "From what I saw it was largely superficial, but we'll have it cleaned up and looked at by a medical expert as soon as we get back."

Chat Noir looked relieved. Officer Raincomprix looked a little puzzled by that, but thankfully didn't comment.

The other officer trotted up to Raincomprix, whispering something in his ear, and Raincomprix frowned. "He's not here?"

"No, sir."

"If you're talking about Mr. Agreste's son, we made sure that he would be over at a friend's house," Tom told Officer Raincomprix. He chanced a glance towards Chat Noir. He and Ladybug had turned away, and Tom suspected that Adrien's composure was maybe starting to shatter. They should really be leaving soon. "So that he wouldn't be here when his father got arrested, and in case the battle went sideways and there was damage to the house. I would think that Nathalie would know which friend he went to visit. But right now..." Tom glanced at the teens again. "I think we should leave. It's been a long day."

"Of course, of course. Thank you for your help." Officer Raincomprix waved a hand at them and Tom took that as their dismissal. He didn't waste any time in heading over to Ladybug and Chat Noir and guiding them towards the door. Once they were outside, Ladybug wrapped one arm around Chat Noir, Butterfly Miraculous still clutched tight in her hand, and threw one yo-yo. Moments later, they were sailing through the sky.

Tom took his time, leaping up onto the wall and then to the building across the street. He glanced briefly back at the mansion, eyes scanning the scene. The Agreste's roof had gone back to normal, missiles retracted back inside with the exception of the few that had tumbled to the ground. Sabine had clearly already retreated- Tom was pretty certain that he had spotted her flash of orange leaving right after Ladybug restrained Mr. Agreste- and down below, Tom could spot Mr. Agreste sitting in the back seat of one of the police cars. The officers that had escorted him out were standing next to the car, waiting for Officer Raincomprix and the other officer that had stayed back. They were saying good-bye to Nathalie now. Across the street, more people were paying attention to the police cars now. There was a lot of pointing at the police cars and, more concerningly, phones out taking pictures. Some people were pointing after the quickly retreating Ladybug and Chat Noir, and others were peering up at Tom himself.

He wondered how long it would take until someone put the pieces together. Something told him that it wouldn't take long. After all, the superheroes would hardly get involved in the arrest of someone who was being charged for _tax fraud._

Sighing, Tom turned and headed after Ladybug and Chat Noir as fast as he could. Dealing with the fallout from Mr. Agreste's arrest would have to wait for another day.

For now, he had to focus on taking care of Adrien.

* * *

 _A/N: There's one more chapter left in this particular series of outtakes, mostly focusing on the immediate aftermath of the fight.  
_

 _And, as always- I 3 reviews! :)_


	10. Aftermath

Nino and Alya hurried along the sidewalk towards the Dupain-Cheng bakery early Sunday morning. As they crossed the street, Nino checked his phone again and frowned.

Adrien hadn't answered any of his messages yet. Nino had texted him the second that he had heard that Adrien's father had been arrested the previous day, and then had texted several times since, but he had gotten _nothing_. In fact, according to his phone, his texts hadn't even been _read_ yet.

Surely Adrien's phone hadn't been confiscated by the police when they were collecting evidence for whatever had gotten Mr. Agreste arrested? Nino knew that his best bro wouldn't have gotten himself involved in anything illegal on purpose. Maybe Adrien had just turned his phone off and hadn't wanted to talk to anyone, but surely he knew that they would be concerned about him.

"Anything from Adrien yet?" Alya asked over her shoulder as they hurried down another block.

"Nothing."

"Marinette hasn't responded yet, either," Alya said, glancing at her phone and narrowly avoiding walking straight into a lamppost. "She's probably still asleep. Ugh, of all the days for her to sleep in!"

"How serious do you think the charges against Mr. Agreste are?" Nino asked instead of pointing out that Marinette slept in every day that she could. He checked his phone again and refreshed the news page had had pulled up earlier with the news about Mr. Agreste getting arrested. It hadn't been updated at all yet, just a short blurb with the banner _Developing Story_ , just like it had been since the previous afternoon. "Like, I always thought that the dude was an ass but too much of a stick in the mud to actually break the law. The most I can see him doing is _maybe_ a little tax evasion, but would that really require _arrest?_ I would think that there would just be, like, a court summons or something."

Alya just shrugged. "I don't know. We'll have to ask Adrien. Hopefully he'll know something. He might not, though. He might be just as in the dark as we are."

"Surely the police would tell him something," Nino objected. "He'd have to know how long his father is going to be in jail." He couldn't imagine that the police would keep something like that from Adrien. It would make his friend super-worried, and Adrien had already been _off_ in school for the past few days, and just slightly distracted for a few _weeks_ , though he had done his best to hide it. It wouldn't be long before Adrien's distracted behavior started affecting his grades for good.

Wait...was it possible that Adrien had suspected something was going on with his father before, and _that_ was why he had been off before? That would have stunk, having to deal with that all on his own.

Even worse- what if Adrien had been the one to call the police on his father? _Would_ he have even done that?

"If Marinette is still sleeping, shouldn't we just go to Adrien's house first?" Nino asked anxiously when another worried glance at his phone revealed that his messages still hadn't been read. "I don't want Adrien to think that we've abandoned him just because his dad did something shitty. We should get over to his house right away."

Alya shook her head stubbornly. "It doesn't take _that_ long to wake Marinette up, and she'll want to be there. Besides, maybe we can get something from the bakery to bring to Adrien."

Nino grinned. "Yeah! Some croissants or pain au chocolate for my bro! He loves that stuff. Okay, but we have to hurry. I don't care if we have to drag Marinette out in her pajamas."

Alya laughed, but then stopped and scrambled for her phone as it let out a ding. She pulled it out to look at the message, and her face dropped for a moment. "Oh. Rose, not Mari- Oh! Oh, gosh!" Her eyes went wide and suddenly she shoved the phone into Nino's face. "Oh my _god_ , Nino! Look!"

Prying the phone away from his face so he could actually see it, Nino read the message. "New Miraculous users spotted? Cool!"

"Read the rest," Alya urged.

"Near Adrien's house yesterday around the same time the police were there," Nino finished. "...uh, _that_ is weird. And a little less cool. Do you... do you think that's related somehow?" He couldn't imagine how, really. What would the superheroes want with Mr. Agreste? "Maybe they just saw the ruckus and decided to stick their heads in to investigate."

Alya was frowning. "I'm not so sure about that. If it were just Ladybug and Chat Noir, then sure. They might be familiar enough with Adrien because of the attacks on our school to want to check in on him. But why would there be new ones joining them for that, especially when it was only the two of them for the fight right before that?" Another ding, and Alya checked her phone. "Okay, correction- _one_ new user. Apparently it looked like a turtle and absolutely _dwarfed_ Ladybug and Chat Noir. But my point still stands."

Nino just shrugged. Guessing was honestly probably pretty pointless. Hopefully they would be able to go to the mansion soon and would be able to hear from Adrien himself what had happened. He hoped that they would be able to get through any reporters outside the Agreste mansion, that Nathalie would actually be willing to let them in, and that Adrien would be up to seeing them, even if it was only for a little while.

"Good morning, you two," Sabine greeted them cheerily as soon as they stepped into the bakery. "You're certainly up bright and early. I don't think I've ever seen Marinette up at this time during weekends."

"She never is," Alya agreed cheerfully, hugging her. "Can we go up?"

Something like worry flickered over Sabine's face, and Nino frowned slightly. "Well... I suppose you can go up, but if they're asleep, don't wake them up, okay? The poor dear had a rough evening."

"We won't," Alya assured her, heading back past the counter. Then she paused. "Um..."

"There's a plate of croissants upstairs," Sabine told her. "Let me know if you run out."

"Okay!"

"Are you sure we shouldn't just go over to Adrien's place right away?" Nino asked as Alya charged ahead up the stairs. "Mrs. Cheng said that Marinette had a rough evening- if she's sick or something..."

Alya turned to give him a doubtful look. "She _still_ wouldn't want to miss this, sick or no. She's run on barely any sleep before."

"That's no fun if you're sick, though."

"Then I won't barge in yelling. If she looks really sick, I'll leave her be and we'll just make off with a few croissants." Alya led the way into the living room/kitchen section of the apartment. "You coming?"

Nino considered it. Normally, he would say no right away- walking in on his sleeping friend could be creepy if she hadn't said that she would be okay with it- but he wanted to make sure that Alya didn't wake Marinette up if she looked ill. He knew his girlfriend sometimes acted without thinking things all the way through, and Alya might let her worry about Adrien blind her to how sick Marinette was. "Okay, I guess."

Grinning, Alya led the way up to Marinette's room. Nino followed, making sure to close the trapdoor quietly behind him. Alya didn't even pause before heading up the stairs to the loft, with Nino trailing warily behind.

Maybe he should have just trusted Alya and stayed downstairs. This just felt like an invasion of Marinette's privacy.

"Oh my _god_."

Frowning, Nino glanced up at Alya. She looked absolutely _thrilled_ about something. "What?"

"Come up here!" Alya hissed in the same tone of voice. She beckoned frantically. "C'mon, quickly!"

Curious, Nino headed up. He glanced down at the bed, expecting to see Marinette and a mountain of tissues and maybe some cough drop wrappers...and instead saw Marinette with Adrien snuggled up to her side, his face pressed into her shoulder and her fingers tangled in his hair.

 _Oh._

"Well, I guess it's a good thing we didn't go to Adrien's house," Nino managed as Alya snapped a few pictures with her phone, a wide grin on her face. "And- do you think Sabine knows that he's here? Or do you think Marinette smuggled him up and then pretended that she was sick so they wouldn't disturb her?"

"Oh, Tom and Sabine probably know," Alya told him. "If they thought Marinette was sick, they would come up to check on her, not leave her alone. I bet that Adrien was over here visiting Marinette when his father was arrested, and – oh! It was probably _Adrien_ who had a rough evening last night, and, uh- now that I think about it, we should go back downstairs and let them sleep. We'll interrogate them when they come down."

Nino nodded and led the way downstairs. Alya closed the trapdoor behind her, trotted down the stairs, and then let out a long squeal of glee. Nino clapped his hands over his ears.

"They were so _cute!_ " Alya squealed, grabbing Nino's arms. "So cute! Do you think they're dating? I _knew_ something was up when they started hanging out together so much!"

"Adrien's father was just _arrested_ , Alya," Nino reminded her. "Now isn't exactly the time to go asking them about that. Not directly, at least," he added when Alya's expression dropped. "And not right away, either. There'll be time for that later."

Alya made a face, though there was still a distinct air of glee around her. "Oh, I _suppose_."

They settled on the couch, each snagging a warm croissant from the covered plate on the counter. Alya's attention switched back and forth between the stairs to Marinette's room and her own phone. Her fingers flew as she tried to learn more about the superhero sighting at the Agreste mansion.

"They were there for nearly ten minutes," Alya reported. "And the police arrived just before them, but didn't go in right away." She frowned as she scanned the post. "And then Chat Noir escorted them in. That's _weird._ "

Nino frowned. A possibility was nagging at his in the back of his mind as the clues started to fall into the place, and it wasn't pretty. If it was true...

Nino didn't want to think about it too much. There was no point in jumping to conclusions.

"People weren't kidding when they said that they said that this Turtle dude was huge," Alya commented a few minutes later. She held her phone out. "Look at him! He's an absolute giant. He'll probably be able to just plow down akuma if he joins Ladybug and Chat Noir for future akuma fights, and then just _sit_ on the akuma until Ladybug can purify the butterfly. They won't stand a chance."

Unless there weren't going to be any more akuma attacks, in which case... well, maybe the Turtle could sit on robbers and muggers or something.

Fifteen minutes and several consumed croissants later, Mr. Dupain popped into the room with a covered basket of baked treats. He smiled at the two of them as he plopped the basket down on the counter.

Nino could smell chocolate. He craned his neck, interested. He had an inkling that he would be investigating that basket as soon as Mr. Dupain headed back downstairs.

"Reading about something interesting there, Alya?" Mr. Dupain asked, peering over their shoulders. Alya grinned and nodded.

"Yeah! The superheroes were spotted out and about yesterday half an hour after the akuma attack was over, and there was a new superhero with them!" Alya told him excitedly. She waved her phone at him, but thankfully didn't shove it in Mr. Dupain's face. "And they were spotted at Adrien's place, too!"

For a moment, Nino could have sworn that he saw a flash of _something-_ worry, maybe?- flick through Tom's eyes. But then the moment was gone and Mr. Dupain was smiling down at them again. "Oh, that's interesting. Are there, ah- are there a lot of pictures?"

Alya shook her head. "No, most people apparently hadn't paid a whole lot of attention until _after_ Mr. Agreste was brought out by the police, and by that point the superheroes were mostly inside the house, and then they left pretty fast. There's only a few photos, and a lot of them are blurry. People haven't learned how to change up the settings on their phones and cameras to get the best superhero pics."

"I see."

"Most of the stuff I've found was just blog posts and texts from a couple of our classmates," Alya told him. "It's a pity, because the new superhero looked cool, and how am I supposed to make a Ladyblog post about the new guy if there's no information about him?"

"She's doubly sore because she also missed the other new superhero a couple months ago," Nino told Mr. Dupain. "You remember, the fox that was just here for a few fights, that everyone decided must have been a foreign user that was just in town visiting? Alya was too distracted trying to take care of her sisters to get footage, and didn't see the Fox jump right over her head, and some of her followers have been annoyed at her for it."

Tom chuckled. "Well, your Ladyblog followers just have to understand that you can't be expected to cover the entire city all the time. You can't be _everywhere_ at once."

Alya made a face and slouched. "Tell that to my followers," she muttered moodily. "I gotta find as many sources as possible so I can make _some_ sort of post about the turtle holder. _Ugh_ , and if only I had stayed out a bit longer after the akuma fight was over!"

"Well, I had better get back down to the bakery. I just came up to see if, ah, Marinette was up yet," Tom said, glancing upwards. He looked over at them briefly, looking a little shifty. "Uh..."

"We know Adrien is up there," Nino informed him. "They're cuddling."

"Aha."

"Was he over here when his father was arrested?" Alya wanted to know. Nino sat up in interest as Tom suddenly looked a little trapped.

"He- yes, he was. And- oh, I think it's time for me to get bread out of the ovens! Have some snacks, leave some for Adrien and Marinette, and, uh, see you later!"

With that, Tom was out the door in a flash. Nino was impressed that a man so large could move so fast.

"Bugger, I was going to ask if he knew anything about Adrien's father!" Alya complained. She gave the door Tom had vanished through a disgruntled look. "I would go ask Sabine, but she wouldn't want to say anything in front of the customers."

Nino frowned. "Wait, why would they know anything?"

"Unless the police who came to talk to Adrien talked to him alone and Adrien didn't share, Tom and Sabine and Marinette should all know," Alya explained. "And I can't see Adrien _not_ telling them, just to get things off his chest."

"Would Sabrina maybe have some idea?" Nino suggested. "Her father was probably involved in the rest."

"He was the one who said that the police had no further comments," Alya said. She lit up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "That's it! I'll text Sabina now."

Nino grinned and hopped up to investigate the basket of goodies Tom had left while Alya texted Sabrina. As he returned with a chocolate-filled pastry, Alya's phone _dinged_ with a response. She scrambled to check it, and then her expression dropped.

"Her father is refusing to even tell her anything," Alya reported. "He said that he isn't sharing anything until there's an official announcement."

Nino groaned.

"I just don't understand why the superheroes would be involved in police business," Alya said, flopping against the seat and scrolling through her phone again. "Like, I know they sometimes get called in to help with runaway buses and struggling helicopters and whatnot, but to _arrest_ someone?"

Nino just shrugged. He didn't want to suggest the worse-case scenario that he had thought of, just in case he was wrong. In fact, he was surprised that Alya hadn't thought of the same thing he had.

Maybe she _had_ , but just didn't want to say it.

"Maybe they went through the Agreste mansion during the akuma attack and discovered something illegal," Alya suggested. "But...that _still_ doesn't entirely make sense. Why not just tell the police and then have _them_ go up to the door?"

"Who knows." Nino glanced towards the stairs again, then at his watch. He thought that Adrien at least was usually up by this time, but this wasn't exactly a normal day. Adrien might be asleep for a while yet. Even if he woke up, Adrien might not come downstairs right away if Marinette was still asleep.

They might be waiting for a bit.

It was a full hour and a half more before there was any noise from upstairs. Nino and Alya perked up, both setting aside their phones to stare expectantly at the stairs. It took another fifteen minutes before Marinette came down the stairs followed by a bleary-eyed Adrien. Oddly enough, Marinette actually seemed the more awake one out of the two. She spotted Alya and Nino on the couch first and paused. Adrien walked right into her back and only yawned.

"Nino! Alya! What are you doing here?" Marinette managed. Her voice had turned squeaky, and her cheeks tinted pink as she glanced back at Adrien. He blinked, looking vaguely more awake, and then his eyes slid over to Nino and Alya as well.

Suddenly Adrien looked _much_ more awake.

"We came over to see you guys," Alya told her friend immediately. Then a small smirk slid onto her face. "Well, we came to see _Marinette_. We weren't expecting Adrien to be over here, too."

Nino noticed as Marinette tensed up slightly, one of her hands sliding back to twine with Adrien's. She glanced back at him, whispering something, and then nodded towards the bathroom door. Adrien nodded and then stepped back, turning to flee into the bathroom while Marinette turned to face them. Clearly she was planning on taking the brunt of the questioning, or maybe she was just stalling for time while Adrien prepared himself.

"We heard that Adrien's father was arrested," Alya told Marinette after the door had clicked shut. "So we were _going_ to come over and collect you before going over to Adrien's house to see him, but then we saw that he was actually over _here_." She gave Marinette a little smirk, waving her phone with the pictures on it. "You two looked _very_ comfortable cuddled up together."

Marinette turned bright red.

"Do _you_ know what's going on?" Nino asked Marinette. "We've been trying to figure it out, but there haven't been any press releases or anything."

Marinette fidgeted. "It's not my place to say anything," she hedged.

"But you _do_ know."

Marinette paused, then very, _very_ slowly gave a single nod. She glanced back at the closed bathroom door, a concerned look on her face.

Clearly she wasn't going to tell them anything without Adrien's express permission. Nino didn't blame her. He would do the same in a heartbeat, even if it made Alya annoyed with him.

"Is he doing okay?" Nino asked quietly, so Adrien wouldn't be able to hear him from inside the bathroom. "He hasn't read any of my texts from yesterday _or_ today."

"Well, we _were_ asleep this morning," Marinette pointed out. "And we were, uh, busy yesterday. And I think Adrien might have turned his phone off after everything. I know I did." She glanced towards the bathroom door again. "And he's doing about as well as could be expected. He slept well, so there's that."

That was a good sign, or at least so Nino thought. Adrien sleeping meant that whatever his father had done couldn't be _that_ bad, right? Adrien wouldn't sleep if he was really concerned about his father being in jail for a long time. He would stay up worrying himself sick half of the night and then only fall asleep out of exhaustion. He was probably still worried about his father- it was only natural- but whatever the problem was, it couldn't be _that_ severe.

Alya was just as surprised. "He actually fell asleep?"

Marinette looked sheepish. " _Weeeellll_...we might have given him something to help a bit with that. I don't know if he would have slept very well otherwise."

...okay, so maybe it _was_ serious, then. Nino just wanted to _know_ already.

The bathroom door clicked open and Adrien slid back out. He looked nervous, though Nino didn't understand why. Did he think that they were going to judge him for his father being arrested?

 _That_ was not going to fly with Nino. Nuh-uh, no way.

Bouncing up (and brushing off the crumbs from the pastries he had eaten from his pants), Nino crossed the room to engulf Adrien in a giant bear hug. Alya wasn't far behind. Adrien first tensed, then melted into the hug.

"Dude, are you okay?" Nino wanted to know right away, releasing Adrien from the hug and resting his hands on Adrien's shoulders. "Like, what is going _on?_ "

Adrien's smile was definitely on the weak side. "I'm doing okay, I guess. And..." He bit his lip, looking uneasy. Marinette reached over and twined her hand with his. Nino didn't miss the squeeze that passed between them. "And my father...he was Hawkmoth."

And just like that, Nino's worse-case-scenario was confirmed. Alya gasped, looking horrified.

" _Really?_ "

Adrien just nodded.

" _Dude_."

"Adrien is staying here until the police figure out who is supposed to be taking care of him now," Marinette told them. She sent a shy look in Adrien's direction. "...or as long as he wants to stay, really. We're happy to have him here."

If it weren't for the circumstances, Nino was positive that Alya would have teased her friend about that. _He_ would have teased Marinette about that, and then turned right around to tease his own best friend. As it was, they were a little too focused on Adrien.

"And here I was saying that it couldn't possibly be any worse than a little tax evasion," Nino said in complete disbelief. "I- just _wow_. Did the police have any idea what kind of sentence he might get yet?"

Adrien just shrugged.

"Did they have any useful information for you, then?" Alya wanted to know. "Or did they just tell you that your father had been arrested and why?"

"Ladybug and Chat Noir stopped by to break the news before Officer Raincomprix got here," Marinette told them. "So really all he told us was that there would be police at the school so reporters wouldn't be harassing Adrien there." She gave them a small smile. "It was good that the superheroes came by first, though. Officer Raincomprix isn't very comfortable with giving people bad news."

"And two untrained superheroes are better at that sort of thing than a police officer that's taken training and classes about that sort of thing?" Alya said incredulously.

"Officer Raincomprix must _really_ suck at breaking news, then," Nino said immediately, because Alya was right. While Ladybug and Chat Noir were good at comforting akuma victims, he _really_ didn't think that that sort of thing completely translated over to telling someone that their father had been a supervillain and had been arrested, especially when the superheroes themselves had been the ones doing the arresting. And dealing with the brunt of the damage and mayhem that the supervillain had caused.

Then again, that sort of thing required tact, and Nino wasn't entirely positive that that was one of Sabrina's bumbling father's strengths.

Marinette and Adrien shared an odd little look, looking strangely amused at that, and Nino had to wonder just how _bad_ of a job Sabrina's father had done when he arrived. Or maybe the superheroes had just done a really stellar job, or maybe the turtle holder had been the one to talk and they just didn't want to mention him so that Alya wouldn't go into super-reporter-mode and start interrogating Adrien.

"We should probably eat," Marinette said before either Nino or Alya could ask any more questions. "It looks like Papa brought up some treats."

"They were warm two hours ago, but who knows about now," Nino said, stepping back to let the two of them through. "Adrien, dude, Marinette is rubbing off on you already. You _never_ sleep this late."

He was glad to see the hints of a smile flash across Adrien's face. "Actually, Marinette woke up before I did. She was waiting for me for a while."

"I'm thinking maybe you should take less of the, uh, sleeping aid tonight," Marinette said with a bit of a rueful look. "Otherwise you'll be impossible to wake up on time for school." A pause. "Unless you just want to skip tomorrow?"

"Haven't decided yet," Adrien mumbled. He fished a croissant out of the basket of pastries and stuck it in his mouth. "I don't really want to have to field a million questions from everyone, but I don't really want to miss class, either."

Nino was 100% positive that he would fight anyone who pestered Adrien. He was pretty certain that most people in their class would back off if told that Adrien didn't want to talk about it- and he could probably rope Ivan and Kim into helping him keep the other students at school away from Adrien without too much effort, too. Chloe would probably be more difficult, if the fact that she had started spamming his phone with texts (presumably after not having gotten any response from texting Adrien) half an hour ago was any indication.

Literally everyone else in the class had just sent him one or two texts asking if he knew anything, but of _course_ Chloe thought that sending _thirty_ texts would make him respond faster. Nino was tempted to put off answering her for even longer, just to be a little petty.

"We can deal with people," Nino promised Adrien. "And if you want us to meet you guys here tomorrow morning so we can all walk together, we can do that. Just say the word."

 _That_ got a proper smile out of Adrien.

While Adrien and Marinette ate breakfast, Nino quickly texted their classmates (minus Chloe, of course, and Sabrina, who hadn't texted him at all and who would just run to Chloe with any news), telling them that Adrien wasn't ready to share with the rest of the class yet and asking that they just treat Adrien like normal.

Hopefully they would listen. Adrien looked like he needed a little _normal_ right about now.

As he joined back into the conversation, Nino couldn't help but wonder what Adrien's life was going to look like from here on out. With his mother missing and his father in jail, was he going to be carted off to live with some relative somewhere else in the country? Was he going to stay in Paris, under the watch of his father's secretary? Was Nathalie even going to be _able_ to take care of Adrien? If she had known about Mr. Agreste's supervillain tendencies, she might get jail time as well. What about the Gorilla? Would _any_ of Adrien's former caretakers be free to take care of Adrien so that he wouldn't have to leave the city?

Frowning, Nino shook off the depressing thought. Hopefully the police would take Adrien's wishes into consideration and let him stay in the city with his friends. He had support here, friends and teachers and, well, whatever Marinette was (Girlfriend? Future girlfriend? Cuddle buddy?). Adrien probably wouldn't be allowed to stay at the Dupain-Cheng house long-term (since he _was_ sharing both a room and a bed with Marinette currently), but surely he wouldn't be pulled away from them permanently.

Adrien had already been through so much in the past year. Hopefully the next few months would be calmer and he would be able to recover from everything that had happened.

Because Nino knew that more than anything, his best friend deserved some stability. He deserved guardians that cared for him, he deserved supportive friends that he could hang out with, and most of all, he deserved freedom to enjoy himself like a normal teenager.

Hopefully Adrien would get that soon.


End file.
